The concept of "The Long Tail" enabling the majority of smaller, focused sites to thrive is only as valid as assuming all of the 500 channels on your cable subscription will be both profitable and have significant viewers. A well-known adage is that 9 of every 10 startups fails, and it's not unexpected that even in a microcosm like Weblogs Inc., there will be winners and there will be losers. That a monolith like AOL has the gall to select those losers, on the other hand, is upsetting.

(Faux Disclosure: My RSS Feeds include Engadget, Calicanis and ValleyWag)

As we've discussed Nick, my plan when running Weblogs Inc. was always to shut down blogs that were not at 1M pages a month (or on their way to 1M pages a month).

While we closed some niche blogs we also launched a dozen spinouts like AutoblogGreen.com, WowInsider.com, EngadgetHD.com and EngadgetMobile.com. These spinouts did *AMAZING*, in fact I think the Joystiq spinouts do as much traffic as Joystiq does!

My guess is they would consolidate DVGuru and PVRWire into Engadget and EngadgetHD, BBHUB into EngadgetMobile, and Divester into Gadling.

Niche blogs are great, but when you're running a scale business like AOL is you're better off focusing on your HUGE winners like Autoblog, Engadget, Joystiq, etc.

Note: This is something that I planned with Brian Alvey and Judith Meskill loooooooooooong before I left AOL. This has nothing to do with budget cuts like you're saying above. We did waves of consolidation over the summer and fall, and I think there is very, very little left.

Well, "budget cutbacks" have been given to site editors as reason for the closures, I'm hearing. Could just be a conveniently current justification for an earlier plan, I suppose.

So, if WIN had 80 blogs at the peak, how many will it end up with at the end of this rationalization? Wouldn't it make sense to focus all the energy on the three unquestioned successes, Engadget, Autoblog and Joystiq?

Jason Calacanis, the thief who stolen my copyrighted drawings, removed copyright message and placed on his server, is a liar: his blogs are not blogs but online zines/magazines and particularly now, being AOL owned, this talk about being a blog and "doing a great job" is a bunch of lies - it is a webzine like TheREgister and paid with AOL - 14 people covering CES for engadget, oh come off it! These are not blogs.

So now, after Jason Calacanis was fired from AOL for damaging Netscape and for failure of his Digg.com-cloning plans, he still is lying despite not being in AOL. Jason, you flipping thief and liar, when at last you will be sincere and truthful? Never? Yes, I thought so. Jason is not working at AOL so how can she know that these were not budget cuts by this long year master plans? He doesn't know but yet he opens his dirty gob.

Comic Strip Guy: I see you write the captions first. Now draw the picture of the fat, dumb guy and put a bubble around it.

I can't agree with the conclusion this time. This doesn't tell us about "the new publishing," it tells us about Time-Warner. Specifically, it tells us Time-Warner is a hit-driven business whose culture doesn't have a lot of patience for this "longtail stuff." Surprised?

I'm pretty sure the going theory is that niches will most benefit individual niche publishers. WIN's second-tier earners may want to take this move as a cue to self-employment.

Hey, Comic Strip Blogger -- you're out of here. When saying someone is a liar, better to show the inconsistency in what they say, rather than simply insulting them.

AOL overpaid wildly for Calacanis' 'blog network'. The most compelling blogs are a result of inspiration, not calculation. AOL would have done better, and gotten a bigger bang for their buck, if they had waited and studied the blogging scene for a while, then cherrypicked the best 20 bloggers on different subjects, supported them with a 3 year contract, networked them, and promoted the hell out of them. This would have cost a good deal less in upfront money, and AOL's blogs could have been profitable at a far lower cost per reader. Calacanis offered them a turnkey solution instead, and like most big corporations they could not resist.

Who says men can't be catty?

Valleywag: a veritable Algonquin Roundtable for our times...

Pretty sad news that PVRWire is shutting down, even though I'm a direct competitor with my blog (www.allpvr.com).

I think competition is good.

In fact my company, 451 Press is expanding its line-up of blogs. So far, they have about 60 or so and are continuously rolling out more. I wonder if anyone can keep this pace up.

Mister Snitch is absolutely right. It's impossible to calculate what site will strike a chord with an audience and what site won't.

Developing a personality behind a blog takes time and can't be bought and paid for like any other commodity. It's a magical and elusive thing.

Also, Jason's biggest issue is that he comes across as a self-serving pin-point. (I am trying not to offend Mr. Denton's delicate sensibilities)

Wonder whether the guys at AOl have considered farming out all that niche/superniche blogging to India or China.

Just roll up a pre-loaded RSS reader for each topic, promise to shell out $1 per post and you can run 500 niche blogs if you want to.