News staff and editors may be leaving other AOL-owned websites, namely the much-reported-about Engadget resignations, but some websites aren"t seeing their staff quit—they"re essentially all being let go. DownloadSquad and Switched have announced today that they are being closed down.
The merger between AOL and HuffPo called for Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, to become editor-in-chief of more than 55 websites. She was then asked by AOL to shut down at least 30 sites or consolidate ones that were stronger than the rest as she deemed fit. Last week AOL-HuffPo fired all freelancers at their blogs and finance websites. DownloadSquad and Switched are just the latest in those websites that are getting the pink slip.
Editor of DownloadSqaud Sebastian Anthony tweeted last night: "In a world where software is moving towards ubiquity, AOL-HuffPo has seen fit to shut down the best software blog on the Web. Insane." But it wasn"t for another 12 hours until an update on each respective website made it official. In a post, on both DownloadSquad and Switched, Editor-in-chief Thomas Houston said that he"s "been thrilled to work at these two sites" for the last four years but that they "are unfortunately being closed."
Both websites will continue to be operational and functional "through search" but new posts will cease.