Apparently, as of Friday, December 14th, the website StarTrek.com has been closed!
I post this here as Star Trek is such a huge TV entity, of course with a film franchise, but always a TV entity.
The powers that be at CBS decided to restructure the CBS Interactive organization and part of that included eliminating the entire staff at StarTrek.com. What a Henry Potter thing to do at this time of year.
It seems to have come out of nowhere. No matter how you feel about StarTrek,com, is was the only official and sanctioned website that had news items, coverage of events, promotion of upcoming events and extensive data on all the series and movies. No doubt ths help to promote DVD sales and other merchandising.
Of course a lot of sites out there do the same in terms of information, trekmovie being the most in the forefront these days. memoryalpha.com, a Star Trek wiki has probably one of the best, if not the best knowlege base.
But StarTrek.com had the direct connection to the source and could be relied on with accurate news info. They had connections with the studio, actors and producers and creative people.
It's an odd blow with a new movie coming. Of course a big advertising agency or other entity will create a cool JJ Abrams website for the new film to promote it. But we still need that long established startrek.com website that was a fixture for all of the Star Trek universe of TV shows, episode listings, movies, events, coverage of events, DVD and HD-DVD info and upcoming film info.
The fanbase will rally. Maybe a new startek.com will emerge. But it's unclear as the folks that put together startrek.com don't know what will happen.
Here's a link to the Good Bye message from st.com: http://www.startrek.com/startrek/vie...e/2316633.html
And here's a link to the story at trekmovie.com with quotes from a CBS statement, though it does not mention Star Trek, and a statement from the team at st.com: http://trekmovie.com/2007/12/14/star...site-in-doubt/
This is a real shame. And I suppose another example of what happens when large corporate entities take over companies that have so many differing brands. Someone should correct me, CBS runs the TV branch and that includes Star Trek. Paramount runs the film division that includes the Trek film franchise. And then a larger entitiy owns them both. As I understand it, it is CBS who decided to do this.
I post this here as Star Trek is such a huge TV entity, of course with a film franchise, but always a TV entity.
The powers that be at CBS decided to restructure the CBS Interactive organization and part of that included eliminating the entire staff at StarTrek.com. What a Henry Potter thing to do at this time of year.
It seems to have come out of nowhere. No matter how you feel about StarTrek,com, is was the only official and sanctioned website that had news items, coverage of events, promotion of upcoming events and extensive data on all the series and movies. No doubt ths help to promote DVD sales and other merchandising.
Of course a lot of sites out there do the same in terms of information, trekmovie being the most in the forefront these days. memoryalpha.com, a Star Trek wiki has probably one of the best, if not the best knowlege base.
But StarTrek.com had the direct connection to the source and could be relied on with accurate news info. They had connections with the studio, actors and producers and creative people.
It's an odd blow with a new movie coming. Of course a big advertising agency or other entity will create a cool JJ Abrams website for the new film to promote it. But we still need that long established startrek.com website that was a fixture for all of the Star Trek universe of TV shows, episode listings, movies, events, coverage of events, DVD and HD-DVD info and upcoming film info.
The fanbase will rally. Maybe a new startek.com will emerge. But it's unclear as the folks that put together startrek.com don't know what will happen.
Here's a link to the Good Bye message from st.com: http://www.startrek.com/startrek/vie...e/2316633.html
And here's a link to the story at trekmovie.com with quotes from a CBS statement, though it does not mention Star Trek, and a statement from the team at st.com: http://trekmovie.com/2007/12/14/star...site-in-doubt/
This is a real shame. And I suppose another example of what happens when large corporate entities take over companies that have so many differing brands. Someone should correct me, CBS runs the TV branch and that includes Star Trek. Paramount runs the film division that includes the Trek film franchise. And then a larger entitiy owns them both. As I understand it, it is CBS who decided to do this.
