In March, DPReview introduced that guardian firm Amazon was shutting it down, and the pictures world entered a twin state of shock and disbelief.
For 25 years, DPReview had served as a constantly dependable and authoritative voice on pictures gear. However pictures fanatics didn’t simply go to DPReview to drool over Canon’s latest lens or evaluate Sony and Nikon’s face-detection autofocusing capabilities. It was an lively discussion board the place we (sure, I’m a type of pictures individuals) might hang around and geek out.
That such an intensive archive of pictures information and the robust group it had fostered was being banished to the abyss — the plan wasn’t even to archive it however to change it off utterly — was a blow to many. The announcement on DPReview garnered over 5,000 feedback, and other people took to social media to share their ideas about Amazon’s determination.
However that quickly modified when Gear Patrol — which provides recommendation, how-tos and product evaluations, however not particular to cameras — got here to the rescue. It finalized a deal to buy DPReview from Amazon for an undisclosed sum in June 2023. I used to be excited to talk to Eric Yang, Gear Patrol’s founder and CEO, to seek out out what motivated the acquisition and what he realized from the method.
Authority and group
Yang was pushed to carry DPReview beneath the Gear Patrol aegis for a number of causes, and whereas it made enterprise sense, there was a private motivation there, too.
“It’s a enterprise, so it’s not a completely altruistic endeavor,” Yang advised me. “However DPReview could be very significant to me. It’s significant to lots of people, I believe, who’ve grown up on the web.”
DPReview is residence to a rare information base that Yang was reluctant to see disappear. However this data base doesn’t reside simply in its huge archive of evaluations, shopping for guides, editorials and recommendation; it’s additionally within the robust group that this experience fostered. For thus many individuals, DPReview was a protected place to specific opinions, ask for recommendation, or simply be pictures geeks. All of this, collectively, was beneficial to Yang.
A pure match
Yang describes Gear Patrol as a spot that empowers individuals to pursue their pursuits and passions with confidence, which is why he believes that Gear Patrol and DPReview are a pure match. “We wish to assist individuals have the information that they should pursue their explicit passions in the very best method,” Yang stated.