Sports : IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

As predictable as could be, the boards can't be monetized so who needs them?

There was a post made the other day, by a supposedly disgruntled employee, says it all really:


"This is no surprise whatsoever. I've worked at IMDb (the worst and most discouraging experience of my professional life ) and believe me, the company is a soulless, empty corporate shell that has one goal: to sell advertising. It's not about movies, TV, or being 'guardians of data' - everything is about making money. The entire site is setup to sell advertising, and movie data is simply a means to achieve that. End of story.

The reason IMDb is getting rid of the message boards is simple: they can't be monetised. If IMDb could make money out of the boards, they'd be staying, but there's no cash in it for them, so they're getting axed. The sell-outs who run IMDb will have looked at the 'metrics' (a risible corporate buzzword the Data Team loves so much) and decided that traffic is not high enough for them to make any real money.

It really is that simple. I've experienced first-hand the obsession with metrics, and making money (at the expense of customer satisfaction), and it really is pathetic to behold. No decision is made at IMDb without greed being factored into the equation, and believe me, they will also shut down certain data sections at some point if they get in the way of making money. Forget the fact that the site has compiled 20+ years worth of important data - if one of the sections can no longer be monetised effectively (Literature, for example), they'll just get rid of it.

In financial terms, keeping the message boards live costs IMDb basically nothing, bar the human cost of maintenance, which - when considered in the context of the site's huge annual profit margin - is less than miniscule.

There's no point complaining about it, making suggestions, or suggesting alternate, viable solutions - the hacks at IMDb don't give a toss. There's no money in it for them, so they're not interested. They'll fob you off with the usual hollow platitudes, but make no mistake, the IMDb that people love died years ago. Now, the site is just a shiny, corporate plaything, pimped out by Amazon for the purposes of making money, with greed - not customer focus - being its primary driving force.

One final note: it probably burns IMDb that the majority (over one third) of their users come from China, the audience for which is far less valuable to advertisers than, say, the USA and the UK. Only about 5% of IMDb's users come from the UK, which is ironic considering the site originated in England. But, I digress - this post will, of course, be deleted, but what the hell. I don't care!"


--
Nada - Senza Un Perché
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z498JqZD_k

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed


the company is a soulless, empty corporate shell that has one goal: to sell advertising. It's not about movies, TV, or being 'guardians of data' - everything is about making money. The entire site is setup to sell advertising, and movie data is simply a means to achieve that. End of story.


What a stupid bitch. Companies exist to make money. If they don't make money, they can't pay your stupid ass.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Uhh, my company runs on rainbows and good vibes...

==================
I am Marco.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

I work in a state prison, so my company runs on your taxes.. Thank you for my job



I keep setting my dvr to record "the biggest loser" and it keeps recording Philadelphia Flyers games

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Put the pot down Granny. Next thing you know you will be saying you ride a unicorn.

you re gonna need a bigger boat.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

You're the fake lawyer guy, right? LOL.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

I'm a person who is clearly smarter than you. There are many of us apparently.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

A better way to phrase his critique is likely that they're only about short term profits, instead of long-term consumer retention. Also, while companies exist to make money, various derivative suits have resulted in holdings that businesses don't necessarily have to maximize profits at the cost of everything else (like the fact that corporations are allowed to donate to charity or make environmental investments).

Kentoc'h mervel eget bezañ saotret

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

What IMDb doesn't realize is that the message boards contain an IMDb army that, if asked in the right way, would march into a battle for them.

Before coming here I belonged to another group of message boards who ended up having great in person meets and people from all over the world showed up and had a dedication to those boards and community that was remarkable (I didn't make it). That group ended up bonding together to do things in the boards name for a number of charities and they went crazy. It was like an army. And, it wasn't anywhere near as large as the IMDb boards. It was just for various television shows at the time.

Well, those TV shows finally died off and the people who ran those sites ran into the same problem, no way to monetize their invention and gradually, the boards died. Oh well. It was something while it lasted though. I live in Southern California and I met a beautiful girl from Australia through one of the boards, that made it all worthwhile for me. I moved over to IMDb once those died out.



--
Nada - Senza Un Perché
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z498JqZD_k

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

I used 6-6. It was faking huge. But BBC doesn't advertise. It's income is license fees and selling rights to content to other networks globally.

So I can understand why that shut. But fck me it was busy. Like 10 times more than here on a good day. But us uk tax payers paid for it. So well it's kind of right I suppose. The BBC being the BBC had done to moderate.

This palace just needed to sub the forum out - someone would have bought it - stripped out the outdated crap code and made it a subscription service. Even if 40 percent stay on. It would pay for the maintanencel

ΔΨΨΔ

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Never used 606, have you ever used the digitalspy forums? I just had a quick look over there and The 2017 BDO Darts WC alone attracted 488 replies. That's pretty good going! Be lucky if you got 5 replies on here for that. The downside is I'm doubtful there are many yanks to wind up. And I don't know what the moderation is like.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Yeah I have heard of them. And read threads and stuff. Not sure if I joined. A lot of TV stuff was talked about on there- probably still the same.

Forums are a tough balance. You don't want them too busy or too dead.

TBH I go on many breaks. Maybe it's to,e for another.




ΔΨΨΔ

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

I think it seems like a good board. I've lurked a bit in the athletics thread and it's pretty amazing how knowledgeable and passionate they are. Might join when it's summer over there and the season meets start up.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

>>> What IMDb doesn't realize is that the message boards contain an IMDb army that, if asked in the right way, would march into battle for them.

March into battle?? IMDB has been hosting a message board. Not desperately fighting to drive off a horde of rampaging Mongols.

Others might suit up for combat, but my loyalty only goes so far to an internet message board.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed


so they're getting axed. The sell-outs who run IMDb will have looked at the 'metrics' (a risible corporate buzzword the Data Team loves so much)


What are "metrics"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24MZcKtps1w

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

5 percent with 60 million people only is big.

But I suppose if a third of Chinese people are on IMDb and they do not post , that is quite a significant stat that tells us that IMDB does get a load of traffic bar the MB's

The mb's seem to have about 20 % brits and 60 % yanks. 20 percent elsewhere.

However I they included IMDb with pro, many of us would get it

ΔΨΨΔ

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed


But I suppose if a third of Chinese people are on IMDb
The person's claim is that a third of IMDb users are from China, not that a third of China's population are IMDb users.


That'll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo!

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Thanks for the posts. Great letter.

Why am I such a misfit? I am not just a nitwit.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

I believe it. And I knew this was the reason all along.

That said...let's see how much money they make once these boards are closed. This site is going to die.

If there is a Muslim ban, they can pretend they're Christians. You know, like Republicans do.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

It might not make money directly, but I wonder how much it has to do with customer retention and driving people to other pages on the site.

-Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

^^ Exactly. But today's corporate leaders have absolutely no foresight. They just see that the message boards aren't making money directly and that's it.

Tell the facts. Name the names.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

I suppose the thing that really sucks about all of this is that imdb is largely a user created database. I'm not sure how many of you are contributors, but I am, and let me tell you, it is a fairly time consuming process to create submissions and correct omissions/errors.

so to me, it's like amazon bought this amazing product, one of the most comprehensive and user friendly databases on the internet (if not the most), relied on the backs of the users to build and sharpen this database... and now they're spitting in the face of those users by taking away one of their favorite features on the site.

so I have to disagree with klaw here. I do agree that the purpose of a business is to make money... but the situation with this site is a little bit different than if amazon intentionally went out and bought a database from a professional developer with specs... or if they built this product themselves with their own developers... but the fact of the matter was that they bought a user developed passion project created by movie fans and THEN figured out a way to monetize it after the fact... you would think leaving the message boards open would be a nice thank you to the users who helped build this awesome money making product of theirs. especially if what this ex employee is saying is true and the cost associated with the board maintenance is negligible.

but I guess that's why I'm not a billionaire.

Where did you get those clothes, the toilet store?

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Maybe we're just pawns in IMDB's social experiment. They tell us we have two weeks left and then see how the news affects how we talk to and with one another, and then on the 19th they tell us they were just kidding.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Seems reasonable to me, I still don't get why people have an issue with a company watching it's profit margin.


In financial terms, keeping the message boards live costs IMDb basically nothing, bar the human cost of maintenance, which - when considered in the context of the site's huge annual profit margin - is less than miniscule.



Easy to say when it's not your money being given away.




"Every time I walk into my office I walk past 5 Lombardi Trophies not 5 rushing titles" .

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Wait and see how much they lose when the message boards are gone.



--
Nada - Senza Un Perché
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z498JqZD_k

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

LOL




"Every time I walk into my office I walk past 5 Lombardi Trophies not 5 rushing titles" .

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

I wonder why they can't just make us pay for a monthly subscription to use the boards. If 1 million of us use imdb's message boards, and they want us to pay $5 a month, then that should be $5 million minus taxes per month.

They can even get rid of the message boards that are not film related, so they can ensure that people see more of the ads.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

They could. But they just don't care. I'm convinced more and more that they just want the site to die a slow death.

If there is a Muslim ban, they can pretend they're Christians. You know, like Republicans do.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

What's funny is that they will lose a ton of visitors every day. I go to IMDB to check out movies or tv, but almost every day I'll check the sports board or some other discussion boards to see what's up.

Now no reason to do that. I mean they have advertising on the message boards also, so this revenue will be gone.

TWITTER @bigdaddy6666

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Agreed, they will lose a ton of visitors. I will rarely use IMDB anymore but I check it everyday now, it is a really stupid decision to retire the boards.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

>>> everything is about making money.

My god, a business that is concerned with making money!!!! What is this world coming to????

>>> The entire site is set up to sell advertising

For which we should be grateful. Because if IMDB wasn't making it's money through advertising, there is a good chance IMDB would have looked a lot more to us to make money (paid membership). And if IMDB wasn't making it's money through advertising, and paid membership wasn't bringing in enough money to make IMDB profitable, IMDB likely would have disappeared long ago.

>>> I've experienced first-hand the obsession with metrics and making money

Well, if the writer of this piece is a former employee of IMDB (and I wouldn't bet the farm that he/she ever worked for IMDB), I wonder if he/she was payed a salary by IMDB. And if he/she was payed a salary by IMDB then I would be interested in hearing his/her logic as to why he/she was entitled to money for working for IMDB, but IMDB was not entitled to make money. If the "former" employee was paid a salary, then apparently his/her idea that IMDB was some SACRED ACHIVE where making money should not be important was applied more to IMDB (by the employee), then the EMPLOYEE applied that principle to themselves. If IMDB was not allowed to be concerned with making money, where exactly did he/she expect his/her salary to come from??

>>> The reason IMDB is getting rid of the message boards is simple. They can't be monetised.

I might be missing something here, but why couldn't they be monetised? I can understand why there possibly might not be enough money in it to make it worthwhile for IMDB to do it, but (in theory), why couldn't IMDB charge for membership?

>>> with greed-not customer focus- being its primary driving force.

Stop calling us customers. We are not customers of IMDB. Unless you are giving IMDB money in return for a product/service, (and I haven't paid any money for membership. I don't know if anyone else has) you are not an IMDB customer. What we are, are IMDB MEMBERS. Or "VISTORS/GUESTS" to a privately owned Internet site. And the business that owns said site, is entitled to do what they want with it. CUSTOMERS have rights. GUESTS/MEMBERS who come to a privately owned internet site, FREE OF CHARGE, really don't have any rights regarding said site.

Or, one could say, we are the MERCHANDISE. As IMDB is selling it's advertisers access to us.

The IMDB message boards were entertaining while they lasted, but there demise isn't really that big a deal. There are other internet message boards for those who want to keep posting.















Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed


Stop calling us customers. We are not customers of IMDB. Unless you are giving IMDB money in return for a product/service, (and I haven't paid any money for membership. I don't know if anyone else has) you are not an IMDB customer.


You're not, but others are.

You had to pay for IMDb Pro, and IMDb were asking for fees just a couple of weeks ago.

Something tells me that they aren't refunding...


Edit: OP looks really familiar...

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

And if you are a member of IMdB Pro then you are a customer. But i suspect an awful of posters and IMDB members are not members of IMDB pro.

IMDB pro is something completely different then just being a MEMBER of IMDB.

>>> Something tells me that they aren't refunding.

Are they getting rid of IMDB pro? My understanding of IMDB pro is that it offers a lot of services/benefits other then posting on a message board.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

No, because they have found a way to monetize these boards.

$150 p.p. p.a.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

What boards are you talking about? The regular message boards or something to do with IMDB pro??

If you are talking about the regular message boards, I have never received any notice/message from IMDB saying that any payment would be required for access to the boards.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

IMDb Pro wouldn't have come about without these boards.

A lot of traffic came to these boards, and they managed to monetize that traffic with IMDb Pro.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

So you are talking about IMDB pro. Which is not the same as these boards. Regardless of how much you think these boards led to IMDP pro.

Nobody forced you to join IMDP pro. You could have stayed out of IMDB pro and still maintained your regular IMDB membership. And if you are a member of IMDB pro, then you supposedly should be getting some benefit out of it. And you will still have your IMDP pro membership, and the benefits that go along with it, after these boards are gone.

Plus none of that changes the fact that the business that owns a private internet site is perfectly entitled to do what they want with it.

As those "members" of the site, are perfectly entitled to quit the site if they don't like what is being done with the site.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

To al the people who think that IMDb is going to lose a ton of traffic aren't looking at the big picture. Think about it. How many message boards are out there within IMDb? Out of the thousands upon thousands of movies and TV shows, how many are actually active? Go to TV shows and movies that are long ago past and see how many posts they have. Sure, there are sections like here, politics, soapbox etc that get a lot of traffic, but hardly enough to make a dent in it.

There could be a better solution for shutting everything down though. The main category boards could be trimmed down. There's a lot of useless ones on there. As far as movies and TV shows go. When a show has been off the air for over a year, the message board for that show comes down. Now since we all know, the site is owned by Amazon, the smart move would be for message boars to see open for any movie r show that is available on Amazon Prime, providing you are a customer of Amazon Prime. It's not likely they will go up this route, as in the long run, it's jot worth their time and effort.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

Real issue is that Amazon paid for IMDB primarily as a public relations gimmick to help the image of the company. Because of the dramatic rise in trolling..and much of it based on race and ethnics groups....it was not giving Amazon the image it wanted from IMDB.
In the end we were are playing on Jeff Bezos's dime,and Bezos decided it was not worth it any more.

Re: IMDb employee writes about why the boards are being closed

He better have hopes that he still has a job with them
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