Industry News


Amazon to Shutter DPReview After Nearly 25 Years

March 22, 2023

By Hillary K. Grigonis

© DPReview

The Amazon-owned online photography resource DPReview is shutting down on April 10. Amazon is terminating the website, a resource known for its camera reviews and web forums, as part of the parent company’s 18,000 layoffs announced earlier this year.

In a letter to readers, Scott Everett, DPReview’s general manager, said that the staff is still working on new content through April 10. After which, the platform will be in read-only for “a limited period.” Users that have submitted content over the years may request a copy of the data until April 6.

[Read: How to Deal with Client Reviews—Good, Bad or Ugly]

“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,” Everett wrote.

Amazon purchased DPReview, a platform built largely on digital photography reviews as well as a large user forum, in 2007. After the acquisition, DPReviews content was often linked to Amazon product listings for different photography gear. DPReview launched in December 1998, which means the company is closing just shy of its 25th anniversary.

DPReview lists 12 staff members. Parent company Amazon began laying off workers last November and earlier this week announced an additional 9,000 staff members would be cut for a total of more than 18,000. The layoffs come after a hiring surge during the pandemic that added 798,000 jobs between the end of 2019 and the end of 2021. PetaPixel has already announced that Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake, influencers heading DPReview’s videos, would be joining their team to lead a new YouTube channel.

“For several years leading up to this one, most of our businesses added a significant amount of headcount,” wrote Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in a memo concerning the additional 9,000 layoffs. “This made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a whole. However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount. The overriding tenet of our annual planning this year was to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term customer experiences that we believe can meaningfully improve customers’ lives and Amazon as a whole.”

The latest round of layoff announcements cuts jobs largely in Amazon Web Service, People Experience and Technology Solutions, Advertising, and Twitch, Jassy said.