Broadway.com closed down their message board in early May 2003. Although they took down the link from their website, I had the URL of the board bookmarked so those who had it on their favorites were still able to use it. Broadway.com administration created a thread to tell us the board was going to be deleted because of how immature we were and the arguments that kept taking place.
Rob came over and created a post saying he created a new Broadway website and there was a message boards over there. So I clicked on his link, joined, and have never again had a need to visit Broadway.com except for the occasional video clip.
Broadway.com's biggest mistake was closing their message boards. I am sure they lost a LOT of traffic due to it. BWW now has the immature users and arguments that take place. What Broadway.com failed to realize was that "online drama" happens anywhere. There is no utopia. Not everyone is in harmony. Broadway has problems, people have problems, and now we discuss these problems (and blessings, too) at BroadwayWorld.com. Without the BroadwayWorld.com community and Broadway.com closing their board, it may very well be that BWW would have disappeared into obscurity and Broadway.com remained dominant.
Broadway.com's audience is now mainly naive tourists looking to see what the heck Broadway shows are. Very seldom do they have exclusive news. Occasionally there will be a video clip there (in which I find out about from the BWW boards) that I'll go watch, but that's it. People go to BWW.com (and Talkin Broadway) for their Broadway dish.
Kudos to Rob and Craig and the gang for creating a wonderful enviornment for the online theatre community. You continue to improve this already marvelous website.
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle
