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Podtropolis iPod BitTorrent Tracker Shutting Down

podtropolis.com — Podtropolis, the most popular iPod tracker on the web, is closing it's doors sometimes in the next week. The staff last week posted a notice saying they had run into financial difficulties and due to lost advertising revenue and a plethora of technical issues has decided to call it quits. A real shame.

Bury

awilkinson 2 years 154 days ago, made popular 2 years 153 days ago

597 diggs
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51 Comments
Who Dugg It?

thehouse, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18I never even knew this existed.
- csansbury, on 10/12/2007, -10/+7...but you must have...it's "the most popular iPod tracker on the web"
autoy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Great discovery. Maybe too late? Let's digg this up.
alai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12The title for this story is a little inaccurate (although I still digg), they are actually calling for donations explaining that if they don't get enough to pay their server bill this month they will shut down. Seeing as they have been front paged on digg, I have a feeling they will be around for a bit longer.
cribblog, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24it could be because their advertising sucks... for example on the right side of their page they have Sponsored Links

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llast time i checked they were a technology site.
hmmm.
- antoniojvr, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2 Sponsored Links
  
  GET LAID NOW!
  What Are You Waiting For? Join Today!
  
  FREE Mobile and PC Porn
  THOUSANDS of videos for iPods, PSP, Cell Phone, & PC
  
  FIND A ***** BUDDY!
  Find Someone Local to BANG Tonight!
  
  BANG A HOTTIE Tonight!
  Red, Hot and Willing Singles Looking For SEX Now!
  
  Looking for SEX?
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- Warpling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Thats actually why I stopped going, It was annoying to have open on my computer, and wierd. Good torrents thought, duno why I stopped using my ipod lately? hmm.
- awilkinson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Every tracker has them.
icdeadpeople, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Well, i did go to them regularly but they dont get much stuff up and there's way much better sites so i dont really care if it closes down.
proghead, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12@ cribblog
if you knew anything about advertising you'd know that porn sites will pay the highest for your site and advertise anywhere. However, it can lower the reputation of the site. Why do you think newgrounds is like that? they don't get donations but they need to pay for a crapload of bandwidth. It's the same here. they obviously don't want to have ads like that, but its a last resort to keep the site afloat. It's not funny and hopefully some people will start donating fast. I just did.
Dafish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2they do have one credible banner at the top.
Acill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They have asked for donations for several months now. I was a regular user before all the porn ads. I would rather not use it now with them, but they have asked and they didnt get many from what I hea and read in the forums.
kotatsu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They're a decent site and it's a shame they're going. As for the ads, I never saw them, but I guess that's adblock and filterset G for you.
Foxphoto, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Do they specialize in JUST ipod video and MP3? NOPE It is just another torrent tracker with a catch design. In this day in age ANYONE can find free hosting...
- awilkinson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Yes...all content is iPod compatible. No videos are in other formats, only M4A.
matt428, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Did anyone else find very few seeders at that site? I gave up after getting terrible transfer rates and infrequent updates of content... the idea was excellent, and I would love to see a torrent tracker dedicated to iPod video content (especially for those of us in Canada who don't have any videos at the iTunes store)
- Kronosreaver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Matt428 ""I would love to see a torrent tracker dedicated to iPod video content ""
  
  www.iPodNova.net
- matt428, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Thanks!
- edicius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1iPodNova has hideous site design...should have known if it contains "nova".
nofxjunkee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Great site, used them since I got my 5G iPod when it came out and the site was brand new. Too bad to see them go. Guess they never got to that critical mass.
PAJK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is a pretty great site. It's worth donating to. I'm sure it's popular enough to sustain itself on advertising though, as well as make some money . . . they really shouldn't throw away this opportunity, and put their heads to it.
- PAJK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've noticed that their donate link is a mailto action, opening an email requesting that donation info be sent.
  
  No wonder they have so little donations.
  
  The majority of users don't even have their mail client setup. They use hotmail and the likes. And for those that do, it's just tedious.
  
  Their link should be a PayPal button. Then maybe they'd get some real donations.
- awilkinson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Can't use a PayPal button. They used to but PayPal seized their donations so now they have to do it in a different way.
- BillyK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I emailed and askedx for an address to mail a M.O. to (didn't feel comfortable doing an electronic fund transfer). Never got an answer.
  
  Maybe that's why they need donations.
Kronosreaver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The tracker at Podtropolis hasn't worked in nearly 2 months, most of the site (including registration) hasn't been fully functional since December (the domain wasn't even registered untill late Oct' 05).

So 2 months where the site might have worked, followed by 6 months of asking for, and taking donations, with no maintenance or improvements to the site.

Rumor is the Tech side of the site left the "Admin Team" shortly after things were originally setup. So even if the site doesn't close down, fixxing it probably wont happen under the current administration.

Using the closing of the site as a means of soliciting donations and banner hits is just a poor attempt at milking a dying cow. Which would help explain why the site owner is the same person who posted this article.
- edicius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1of course it wasn't registered until Oct. '05...that's when the iPod w/video was introduced...you can't fault them for that.
Coreguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2stick to Mininova and Demonoid....

This torrent site is not special except for having "iPod" in the domain...
Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Torrent sites and trackers can very easily make more money of adverts than the bandwidth costs. I have first-hand experience from when I ran NovaSearch.

I can't say I'm terribly broken up over this anyhow. I actually maintain a program for converting video to iPod format (and doing a better job of it than Videora too), called iPod Drop (http://guspaz.blogspot.com/2006/06/ipoddrop-v141-released.html), so this might mean more people looking for software like mine :)
- MonsterDeLag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I was going to look at your program, Guspaz, but the link doesn't work.
- MonsterDeLag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Nevermind my stupidity, the click-able link has the ), attached... I just had to copy and paste!
r2builder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Man, I only find out about stuff like this when it's going down.

Thanks for the link to
www.iPodNova.net though.
provibe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Might be just as well that it fades away. Never did get good download speeds from any of the seeders. Right now I'm getting a whopping 47 Bytes/sec. Not KBytes, Bytes/sec.
WiBu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2For some reason I'm sensing something like LokkiTorrent (you know, the dude who collected all that money to fight a court case and then caved in but kept the money), except this is a little less extreme.
rushad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2ok guys if this site goes down what am i going to do. What other sites are there for ipod torrents ?
Valuum, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Ipod torrents aren't that popular, so good luck finding them, sorry...

I feel bad for this guy, I don't know the site but just looking at it I can tell it has a nice design and non obtrusive ads, and the fact that he's not profiting off of it is wonderful, I'll donate to him.
- Kronosreaver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1iPod Torrents are plenty popular, and just because you don't look for them, or cant find them doesn't mean they are not out there and easily avaliable.
  
  You say you dont know the site, which is why you might think its a nice design, with "non-obtrusive" ads.. of course the several porn banners and links, along with the other "obtrusive" material were all removed from the main page, at the same time the SITE OWNER posted the article here.
  
  Oh, and just because someone writes something, and you read it on the Internet does not make it a FACT, the only FACT in the statement, is the FACT that the owner "Claims" not to be profiting from the site.
metalica77, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1click on links everyone they bring in advertising money and common help these guys out
Rethcir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ipod.. podcast.. bittorrent.. too many buzzwords... head exploding!!
CygnusStaff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Fools, Podtropolis has been the most popular ipod torrent site around for sometime now. To those who say "meh, who cares, there are better sites out there" Name just one. I've already had that discussion with tons of people before. No other ipod torrent site has as many members or as many torrents as PT, so give up on that topic.

As for the constant problems and BS that PT is faced with, I have hope that it will be back to its normal state in time. Just gotta be patient. In the meantime, I encourage anyone who is generous enough to please donate. I'm sure it would help out a lot.
- Kronosreaver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0---> CygnusStaff ""No other ipod torrent site has as many members or as many torrents as PT, so give up on that topic.""
  
  Podtropolis "Total number of registered users: 1254"
  iPodNova.net "Total Users: 33,807 // New Users Today: 369"
  
  I give up ... on that topic.
buzzert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Word on the street is that since this got digged, they're getting offers.
ipodrocks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Podtrop sucks. That site hasn't been worth anything in months. I have no clue how they can say that it is the most popular. Just look at the stats on Ipodnova.net

Total Users: 34,640
New Users Today: 343
Active Transfers: 3,738
Downloaded: 71.89 TB
Uploaded: 88.35 TB
Tracking 1,358 Torrents
Requests Made: 393
Requests Filled: 214
Seeders: 1,543
Leechers: 2,195

people complane about the look of the site. Who freaking cares, they have the best iPod torrents out there. plus the most upload for show series. Now who really is the most popular site out there? I stoped useing Pt as soon as I found out about ipodnova.net and haven't looked back.
- Kronosreaver, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hell, I Complain that the site is Ugly... or at least that it could look alot better.
  But it WORKS....
  
  #1 - Function, Gotta make it work right in the first place.
  #2 - Content, If there isn't any content, there isn't any point.
  #3 - Look & Feel - Make it all more visually appealing.
  
  Yeah, no stage is ever really 100% done, But at iPodNova.net we at least have them in the right order. Function is all taken care of, Content is already The most and Best for anything iPod Video, and very Strong for anything TV show related. Now that the REAL important stuff is all taken care of we are working towards giving everyone that warm fuzzy feeling just from looking at the site. And NO, I dont mean Porn Banner ads that seem to be the whole purpose of... shall we say some other non-functional trackers.
- InfiniteLoop23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ipodnova is horrible to navigate and is ugly as hell, surely there must be ANOTHER iPod site somewhere??
CygnusStaff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Can't stand a site that looks hideous and almost makes you want to die when you're moving around. PT's design is much easier to understand and looks smooth. Props to ipodnova for having more activity and torrents then, but props to podtropolis for being the only reason ipodnova exists.

I rest my case.
- InfiniteLoop23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sorry to see podtrop go, is there another site (thats not fugly like podnova)
InfiniteLoop23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The SITE OWNER is the guy who started this topic, why is he refering to the admin team as "THEY" when it's him??
Beastyboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I guess its time to go to iPodNova...
crossers, on 02/25/2008, -0/+0I felt really bad for this guys when I read about it on http://www.emergencysoft.com. http://www.mitip2007.org also contained some details
crossers, on 07/03/2008, -0/+0don't worry everything will be ok. Every company has it's finantial crisis periods!
http://www.ocflex.com/
http://www.trgovinca.org
http://www.chasr.org/
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Podtropolis iPod BitTorrent Tracker Shutting Down

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