Micah Singleton, The Verge:
There goes another one. AOL is shutting down The Unofficial Apple Weblog, better known as TUAW, sources familiar with the situation tell The Verge. The company — which is also shutting down its gaming site Joystiq — is in the midst of a major reorganization, and is cutting back on media properties it deems as underperforming. TUAW’s run comes to an end on February 2nd.
In middle school, I distinctly remember reading Joystiq about the latest video games when the school librarian wasn’t looking. TUAW came shortly after and was the first Apple blog I ever visited. Like most publication shutdowns, this comes as sad news. 1
One of the more interesting parts of this article says that their post profitable division is their Membership Group which handles their dial-up service customers. Is it insane to say that any company which makes most of its money on an outdated Internet connections is a company with a limited future?
Let’s face it. AOL isn’t going to be breaking into the modern web provider competition. They don’t have the might to stand toe-to-toe with today’s web giants.
AOL still has a few publications worth reading at the moment. Engadget, TechCrunch, and The Huffington Post still boast big numbers. Those will sell before they fold. Maybe they should do that before Elon Musk sees his plan through.