Well that was unexpected, Aol shutting down TUAW.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog is a part of Weblogs, Inc, a company that was purchased in October 2005 by Aol for $25 million. Founded in 2004, TUAW Covers Apple news, tips, reviews and analysis, and its closing its doors on Feb 2.
Aol is laying people and sites off as a part of it’s “reorganization plans”, another site that is also effected with this is Joystiq and Aol is merging it and TUAW with their sister site Engadget.
Aol also own a lot of popular news site, such as The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and Engadget.
Here’s what other sites are saying about this:
AOL decided against selling TUAW, leaving open the possibility it could resurrect the site in the future. But for now, a team of writers and editors are out of jobs.
In Q3, AOL made $454.5 million from advertising revenues (combining AOL properties display, AOL properties search and third-party platform), which worked out to about 73% of all of its $626.8 million in revenues for the quarter. But if you look at the company’s profit, it is currently driven not by its advertising business but by its subscriptions revenues (eg its legacy dial-up business and other paid services).
I’ve heard separately that pageviews were in a slow downward spiral over the past few years and the site became too small to justify being a separate unit against slowing ad revenue for AOL. In any case, it is always sad to see some good Apple writers out of a gig.
And here’s some tweets regarding this big news:
Thanks @stevensande @superpixels @ericasadun @MikeTRose @kellyhodgkins and others. Apple community owes @TUAW big time.
— Federico Viticci (@viticci) January 30, 2015
Thoughts are with the whole crew of @TUAW. — Tim Stevens (@Tim_Stevens) January 30, 2015
I owe TUAW for introducing me to @blankbaby. Who got out of this tech blogger racket.
— Jason Snell (@jsnell) January 30, 2015
I’m so sad to see this. I became a nerd by reading TUAW. http://t.co/NlOabrV8JS — Myke Hurley (@imyke) January 30, 2015
In 2009 I got my 1st ‘big break’ as an app developer from TUAW, with an article about Audiobooks. Sad to see it go. http://t.co/wPNnuOGbKF
— David Smith (@_DavidSmith) January 30, 2015
The first press mention of any of my apps was on @TUAW. Thanks again @stevensande! http://t.co/rhucd9b6qF — David Barnard (@drbarnard) January 30, 2015
Tuaw shutting down after 10 years. Sign of the times
— Arnold Kim (@arnoldkim) January 30, 2015
Sites like TUAW and Joystiq got me interested in this business in the first place. Very sad to see them go: http://t.co/JUpdF3f6LD — Martin Bryant (@MartinSFP) January 30, 2015
Thanks to everyone @TUAW for so many informative, inspiring years. You will be profoundly missed. http://t.co/yZ1PnkPjzM
— Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) January 30, 2015
So sad to hear that AOL is shutting down @TUAW, i’m pouring out a little liquor for my friends that work there. http://t.co/P8E5lgkuav — Chris Herbert (@hrbrt) January 30, 2015
Pour one out for TUAW. Download Squad and TUAW are where I got my start. Best wishes for good landings for all. http://t.co/apz4A8DEBw
— David Chartier (@chartier) January 30, 2015
Argh! If I had the resources, I’d keep @TUAW going. — Chris Pirillo (@ChrisPirillo) January 30, 2015
Our thanks and best wishes to all those currently and formerly at @TUAW. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
— Smile (@SmileSoftware) January 30, 2015
P.S. Take a look the TechCrunch’s url, I think it describe what Aol is doing the best.