The Juicy Campus Web site that allowed college students to post campus gossip anonymously shut down on Feb. 5, but another gossip site called Anonymous Confession Board has sprung up in its place.

In a press release sent on Feb. 4 from Matt Ivester, Juicy Campus’ founder and CEO, he cited the recent economic downturn and decreasing advertising revenue as reasons for the site’s removal.

“Unfortunately, even with great traffic and strong user loyalty, a business can’t survive and grow without a steady stream of revenue to support it,” Ivester said in the press release. “In these historically difficult economic times, online ad revenue has plummeted and venture capital funding has dissolved. Juicy Campus’ exponential growth outpaced our ability to muster the resources needed to survive this economic downturn.”

Ivester, who graduated from Duke University in 2005, launched Juicy Campus in October 2007.

The Web site had expanded to 500 campuses, which each had its own separate Web pages for anonymous comments.

Juicy Campus had sparked controversy because the posts were often crude, explicit and directed at specific people. Tennessee State University banned students from accessing Juicy Campus on their Internet networks in November.

In his press release, Ivester acknowledged that his website has sparked discussion about issues like Internet censorship.

“…I’d like to thank everyone who has engaged in meaningful discussion about online privacy and Internet censorship. Juicy Campus has raised issues that have passionate advocates on both sides, and I hope that dialogue will continue.

“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. I hope that is how it is remembered,” Ivester wrote.

Now, www.juicycampus.com is automatically redirected to the Web site www.collegeacb.com.

The Anonymous Confession Board (ACB) originally launched last year by Andrew Mann of Johns Hopkins University and Aaron Larner of Wesleyan University.

Peter Frank, a current freshman at Wesleyan, took over the Web site three months ago.

Although ACB took Juicy Campus’ Web URL when it shut down, Frank said ACB has no other involvement with Juicy Campus.

He said ACB will overcome the financial issues that afflicted Juicy Campus.

“We have lower overhead, and we think we are going to maintain a positive image so advertisers will want to advertise with us,” Frank said.

He said the advertisers would also be “higher quality” because ACB’s good image will attract them, whereas that was not the case with Juicy Campus.

Frank said that before Juicy Campus ended, there were 20 college campuses on the Web site. Now, he said they have expanded to 500 since Feb. 5.

He said the huge increase is due to the redirection of the Web URL and because students are looking for something new in a Web-based community.

In a press release sent Feb. 5, Frank explained the differences between his Web site and Juicy Campus.

The press release said ACB’s mission statement is, “to give students a place to vent, rant, and talk to college peers in an environment free from social constraints and about subjects that might otherwise be taboo.”

“Such a philosophy sets the ACB apart from Juicy Campus, a Web site that fostered superficial interactions, often derogatory and needlessly crude. By contrast, the ACB consistently hosts a higher level of discourse-while still making room for the occasional gossip post,” wrote Frank.

Another difference is that ACB gives students a “user-moderation button” that lets students flag any post that might be threatening, libelous or illegal, and it’s immediately brought to the webmaster’s attention.