Juicy Campus will close down today, according to a statement released to the media by the gossip Web site’s public relations department Wednesday.

Matt Ivester, creator of Juicy Campus, said in a news release that due to a decrease in online ad revenue, the site can no longer sustain itself.

‘Like any well-run company, Juicy Campus had financial projections that showed when the site would run out of money,’ Ivester said in an e-mail. ‘However, this occurred sooner than expected as a result of the economic downturn, plummeting ad spending and toughening capital markets.’

Juicy Campus is an online gossip Web site that allows anyone to post messages anonymously. It’s been controversial on campuses across the country since its launch in October 2007. SU’s ABC News on Campus reported rumors that the site would be banned from campus Internet providers in October 2008.

Terrance Johnson, a senior English and textual studies major, said he has never used the Juicy Campus Web site before, but said he would never want to be written about on the Web site.

‘I think that a gossip site that affects so many people’s lives, not just a celebrity gossip site, but actual people’s lives, is just wrong,’ Johnson said. ‘I think it’s a respectable decision to shut it down, especially if we’re talking about people who go to our own school. I wouldn’t want to be written about on there.’

Ivester said Juicy Campus had been trying to find ways to keep the site open for weeks, but Monday he realized it would have to shut down.

‘While there are parts of Juicy Campus that none of us will miss – the mean-spirited posts and personal attacks – it has also been a place for the fun, lighthearted gossip of college life,’ Ivester said in the news release.

Adam Jacobson, a freshman environmental forestry and biology major at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, said that unless the site was going to be revised, it’s a good idea to shut it down.

‘I think it’s a violation of privacy,’ Jacobson said. ‘I wouldn’t want to go on there and see my own name, so it’s definitely a good decision.’

– Asst. news editor Bethany Bump contributed reporting to this story.

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Published on February 4, 2009 at 12:00 pm