DPReview to shut down
DPReview, one of the busiest and most respected online photography publications, has announced it will shut down on April 10, after 25 years in operation.
The website has been caught up in the recent layoffs at parent company Amazon, which announced this week it was to lay off 9,000 jobs, following another 18,000 Amazon workers whose jobs were cut in January in response to a widespread downturn in the tech industry.
Digital Photography Review, or DPReview, was founded in London in 1998 before being acquired by Amazon in 2007 when its base moved to Seattle.
The website was highly regarded for its detailed and exhaustive reviews of cameras, lenses, and other photo gear - to the point where it was, for many photographers, the go-to website for photography gear and information.
On a post published today on DPReview, it was announced the site will be locked, with no further updates made after April 10th 2023.
After that, the site will be available in read-only mode for a limited period before disappearing completely - a particularly bitter pill to swallow for fans of the site considering Amazon's huge cloud computing presence and relative ease with which it could archive the two and a half decades of content on the site.
The closure will also affect DPReview's popular YouTube channel DPReviewTV, hosted by Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake, who shared a farewell message on the channel this morning.
The duo are set to move to competitor website PetaPixel, and front its new YouTube channel.
You can see the short statement from DPReview's Scott Everett below.
Dear readers,
After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview will be closing in the near future. This difficult decision is part of the annual operating plan review that our parent company shared earlier this year.
The site will remain active until April 10, and the editorial team is still working on reviews and looking forward to delivering some of our best-ever content.
Everyone on our staff was a reader and fan of DPReview before working here, and we’re grateful for the communities that formed around the site.
Thank you for your support over the years, and we hope you’ll join us in the coming weeks as we celebrate this journey.
Sincerely,
Scott Everett
General Manager - DPReview.com