Yet another long-running and well-regarded website devoted to technology news and reviews is closing its doors. This time is AnandTech, which was founded in 1997 and has been devoted to covering the PC hardware industry with its detailed reviews of processors, motherboards, graphics cards, and more, along with objective news stories and features.
It"s all the more remarkable that one of the most respected and influential technology websites was formed over 27 years ago by a 15-year-old. Founder Anand Lal Shimpi created AnandTech in his bedroom as a way to offer honest reviews of PC hardware for the hardcore audience. The overall rise of both the consumer internet and more and more powerful processors and graphics cards gave Shimpi a lot to cover and AnandTech became hugely popular.
Shimpi departed the site that he founded in 2014 to take a hardware job at Apple. Ryan Smith, who was already a long-time editor at the site, took over as its Editor-in-Chief and remained in that position until today.
In a farewell message on the site, Smith didn"t offer a specific reason for the shutdown of AnandTech, saying only that "the market for written tech journalism is not what it once was – nor will it ever be again." He added:
Ultimately, a website is only as influential as its readers, otherwise we would be screaming into the void that is the Internet. For all the credit we can claim as writers, all of that pales in comparison to our readers who have enjoyed our content, referenced it, and shared it with the world. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for sticking with us for the past 27 years.
The good news is, unlike the shutdown of Game Informer"s website earlier this month, the AnandTech site will remain so that people can read the extensive archives of reviews, features, and news over the past 27 years. The AnandTech forums will also continue to be accessible and moderated so its large community of users can keep writing and posting for the foreseeable future.