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Matt Ivester, founder and CEO of JuicyCampus, offered words of wisdom to Juicy users after the Web site was forced to close; .Keep it Juicy..
After a year and a half of virtually facilitating gossip for students on more than 500 college campuses, JuicyCampus officially shut down Wednesday citing financial problems. In an open letter JuicyCampus founder and CEO Matt Ivester cited the loss of ad revenue and venture capital funding as causes for the Web site’s end.
“Online ad spend[ing] dropped across the board as the economy took a turn for the worse. Our advertisers have spent less, but have remained loyal, and for that we are very much appreciative,” Ivester said in the letter.
Ivester added that with the current economic climate, the company’s resources failed to match the Web site’s rapid growth.
Despite controversy over the site’s content, Ivester maintained that the decision to officially shut down JuicyCampus, which came on Feb. 2, was not the product of legal trouble or the ban many campuses have placed on the Web site.
“The vast majority of campuses decided not to censor their students. Our traffic levels have remained very strong. Any revenue lost as a result of the campuses that banned us was negligible,” the letter states.
The popular Web site did provoke controversy, but Ivester remains optimistic about its impact on students.
“While there are parts of JuicyCampus that none of us will miss – the mean-spirited posts and personal attacks – it has also been a place for fun, lighthearted gossip of college life. I hope that is how it is remembered,” he said in the letter, “Keep it Juicy.”
Ivester also voiced gratitude for the many debates that the Web site incited over free speech and censorship.
“I’d like to thank everyone who has engaged in meaningful discussion about online privacy and Internet censorship,” Ivester said. “Juicy Campus has raised issues that have passionate advocates on both sides, and I hope that dialogue will continue.”
Nevertheless, some Georgetown students expressed relief at the site’s removal.
“Although nothing that was mentioned about me was ill-intentioned – most of it written by my roommates and other `Dems’ – I thought that the site itself was a horrendous vehicle for rumors and lies to be circulated around campus,” said Ali Rozell (SFS ’11), the events coordinator for the College Democrats.
Josh Rodriguez (COL ’11) was startled to find his name explicitly mentioned by an anonymous poster in a Juicy Campus thread entitled “Closeted Gay Men.”
“I was a little shocked at first because I didn’t expect to see myself on there,” Rodriguez said. “You don’t want to have something associated with you that isn’t true.”
Though the Web site is now inaccessible, Georgetown students continued to actively post up until the day before the site was shut down.
“[JuicyCampus.com] gave people an opportunity to gossip and spread rumors because there were no consequences,” Conor LeBlanc (COL ’12) said.
LeBlanc added that he was glad to hear of the site’s demise.
Nonetheless, Ivester’s letter directed those students still hungry for gossip to the “Anonymous College Confession Board,” also known as “The College ACB.” ACB developers were quick to emphasize that their site was different from Juicy Campus, in a Feb. 5 press release.
According to the press release, “[The] College Anonymous Confession Board seeks to give students a place to vent, rant and talk to college peers in an environment free from social constraints and about subjects that might otherwise be taboo. Such a philosophy sets the ACB apart from JuicyCampus, a Web site that fostered superficial interactions, often derogatory and needlessly crude.”
“By contrast [to Juicy Campus], the ACB consistently hosts a higher level of discourse,” the developers said in a press release on the Web site, “while still making room for the occasional gossip post.”
Despite their differences, the ACB is quickly filling the void left by JuicyCampus, according to the release on its Web site.
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