IMDB is getting rid of their message boards. Will this become the new norm?

[GearHeadDave]

Originally Posted by bobisinthehouse

Internet Movie Database, in 2 weeks will shut down all their message boards. I have heard a lot of controversy over their business decision, but could this happen to other sites? Could this happen here on CD?

Here is there response.

Message Boards - IMDb

Nothing new. Websites have been continuously restricting the ability of their user base to share view and communicate with one another, ever since the beginning. We started out with "bulletin boards" if anyone was around to recall that (back when we were using Lynx text browsers). Long gone - your access to content (especially other user generated content) continues to shrink.

What it comes down to is that IMDB determined there was no money in it for them, and in fact a free discussion format about films might in fact hurt the bottom line of the big money studios. I am assuming that they are keeping the user reviews - getting rid of that would be totally ridiculous.

This should be moved to another area, not in politics.

[GearHeadDave]

Originally Posted by Steve&Adam

This, exactly.

The internets are littered with countless numbers of once formerly-busy but now dead forums. Once parallelling groups were set up on Facebook, etc, the traffic died off on them all. I've never seen the IMDB forum so I can't say how busy it is/was, but why would the owner pay to keep it running when the users can all migrate to Facebook for free?

Yeah but the format of Facebook is really not very conducive to a discussion or a debate of critical review. The thread based format of a forum like this one is needed for that.

[hooligan]

Originally Posted by Dbones

Nope..I've never even been to their site period.

Oh, I've been on IMDb thousands of times - I even have the app on my phone. I've just never been to the forum there.


Surely there are other movie/TV forums out there on the web, right?

[pknopp]

I love IMDB....Never used their forums.