Kyle Bennett, owner and founder of the [H]ard|OCP news and review site has been hired by Intel, effective April 1st. He's closing the site down and demonetizing the forum:
"So what happens to HardOCP? I have thought long and hard about this. I do not want to sell HardOCP or HardForum and see those properties turned into something that I would not be proud of. HardOCP will be "mothballed." It will no longer publish news, editorial, or hardware review content. Of course, being the "Director of Enthusiast Engagement" and closing HardForum.com, one of the largest computer enthusiast forums on the Internet, does not seem to go hand-in-hand, but there are some conflict of interest issues that need to be tackled. HardForum.com will be sold to a company that I have done business with for years, one that I can trust to run it in the way you are familiar with. HardForum will be demonitised and all advertising and commission links removed. Simply put, HardForum will not make money in any way. It will be left up to its members to fund operations through Patreon. We already have Patreon funding in place, so this should not be an issue. Over the last year, I have gotten the HardForum to run lean and mean and I have no doubt that we will not see much change in its functioning. I will also still be an admin and member of our HardForum community. I will still be there interacting with you and the other members. Even though I am going to work for Intel, I am still a member of the enthusiast community and love being a part of it. It is not something I would ever give up."
I never visited the site too much but I still don't see this as good for the community. They did have pretty in-depth reviews over there and that loss will certainly be felt. My main interest however is what impact this will have on their BOINC team.
"So what happens to HardOCP? I have thought long and hard about this. I do not want to sell HardOCP or HardForum and see those properties turned into something that I would not be proud of. HardOCP will be "mothballed." It will no longer publish news, editorial, or hardware review content. Of course, being the "Director of Enthusiast Engagement" and closing HardForum.com, one of the largest computer enthusiast forums on the Internet, does not seem to go hand-in-hand, but there are some conflict of interest issues that need to be tackled. HardForum.com will be sold to a company that I have done business with for years, one that I can trust to run it in the way you are familiar with. HardForum will be demonitised and all advertising and commission links removed. Simply put, HardForum will not make money in any way. It will be left up to its members to fund operations through Patreon. We already have Patreon funding in place, so this should not be an issue. Over the last year, I have gotten the HardForum to run lean and mean and I have no doubt that we will not see much change in its functioning. I will also still be an admin and member of our HardForum community. I will still be there interacting with you and the other members. Even though I am going to work for Intel, I am still a member of the enthusiast community and love being a part of it. It is not something I would ever give up."
I never visited the site too much but I still don't see this as good for the community. They did have pretty in-depth reviews over there and that loss will certainly be felt. My main interest however is what impact this will have on their BOINC team.
