Eine traurige Nachricht: „The DVD Journal“ , eines der zuverlässigsten und anregendsten Web-Journale mit „DVD news, reviews, commentary, and stuff like that“ hat am letzten Mittwoch seine Dienste eingestellt. Zum Abschied gibt es unter dem Titel „Dimming the lights“ vom Herausgeber einen interessanten Aufsatz zu zehn Jahren DVD, die auch die Zeit des „DVD Journal“ im Internet waren. DVD und Internet sind nahezu gleichzeitig entstanden und das Internet hat dazu beigetragen, die DVD zu einem Medium der Filmkultur zu machen:
„The arrival of DVD was bolstered by the near-simultaneous arrival of the World Wide Web. Indeed, for a lot of folks, DVD and the Internet have been inseparable elements of a single success story. The partial democratization of mass publishing — which (before blogs) was virtually limited to tech-savvy webmaster-types who also would likely find the DVD format fascinating — sparked several new websites, including early vanguards like The DVD Resource Page, The Digital Bits, and DVDFile.com. These websites, and the others who followed in their wake, did more than just offer the latest industry gossip and movie reviews. They kept the DVD industry honest by making sure that the earliest of consumers were radically informed about their purchases. In fact, thanks to DVD websites, the „blind“ purchase has never been necessary. For consumers willing to research via mouse-clicks, DVD websites have offered a wealth of details about any given DVD’s transfer quality and extras, often before new products reach store shelves.
Combine that with the fact that websites could be published not just once a day, but updated several times per day, by multiple writers. Without that, DVD might look very different in 2007…“ (The DVD Journal)