After a year and a half of facilitating co-ed gossip, the cyber rumormonger Juicy Campus announced yesterday that it will officially go out of business today.

The Web site allowed college students from over 500 campuses nationwide to anonymously post rumors and discuss the private lives of others. Matt Ivester, founder and CEO of Juicy Campus, said that a lack of online ad revenue and venture capital is what caused the demise of the site.

“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 wrote in an open letter sent via e-mail yesterday. “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, and as a result, we are closing down the site as of Feb. 5, 2009.”

Ivester thanked those who participated in ”meaningful discussion about online privacy and internet censorship,” issues that stirred up controversy while the site was active.

When word of the site’s closing reached the University of Miami, student reactions were mixed.

“It’s good that it closed because a lot of things that were said were wrong and a lot of them were lies,” senior Isabelle Beulaygue said.

Kelly Killian, a freshman, had visited Juicy Campus once, but was unimpressed.

“It seemed disrespectful and not a positive reflection of our campus and its students,” Killian said.

Other students were less familiar with the site, including law student Melissa Esposito, who said she “had no idea what it was.”

“I thought [Juicy Campus] was mostly Greek, with sororities and fraternities involved in it,” junior Carlos Alvarez said.