1. If they sell it to you, would that make AOL a divester?

Posted at 10:28PM on Jan 29th 2007 by cd

2. Don't forget PVR Wire has the same notice up. Great site and a real shame AOL is shutting it.

Posted at 12:26AM on Jan 30th 2007 by Duncan

3. What happened to The Long Tail? I'm a little confused not being from AOL land. Why does a site have to scale up to mass audience levels to avoid death? I thought the whole point was that narrow niche sites like this could thrive thanks to the world of Web 2.0 and all that.

Is this purely a case of AOL not caring enough to exploit the phenomenon? If so it would be a shame for them not to donate or sell the site to an interested party or charitable organization (save the whales?) that would love to have it.

Posted at 3:24AM on Jan 30th 2007 by Kris Tuttle

4. That's been AOLs business model for a long time .. invest in something useful and then .. screw it up :)

Posted at 7:34AM on Jan 30th 2007 by Ancestor

5. The truth of many blogs is that a huge percentage of traffic comes from search engines. Divester, PVRWire, etc have amassed a great deal of content which will continue to make AOL money and drive traffic to other sites after they've "shut down" - yet they will have no ongoing monetary outlay for talent/writing.

It will be sad to see these sites go, but I'm hopeful the current staff will bounce back on other sites or start their own in these niches.

Posted at 8:22AM on Jan 30th 2007 by Dave Zatz

6. do you want to purchase Droxy, the one that brought me into weblogs inc? I miss posting about podcasts and satellite radio!

Posted at 12:16PM on Jan 30th 2007 by Mike

7. Jason,

It's been a fun ride on Divester but let me know what happens. I would be happy to continue posting on Divester.

Posted at 12:30PM on Jan 30th 2007 by Bill Reals

8. Folks, in case you missed it, the basics of the reasoning that went in to this decision has been explained very well by Brian Alvey on his blog.

"One of the facts of this business is that larger group blogs require less management than a one-man blog. If someone leaves a one-man blog you have to scramble to find a qualified replacement, send contracts back and forth and then train your new blogger. On a group blog, the existing team trains new bloggers and the loss of a part-time blogger or two doesn't require immediate attention."

http://www.brianalvey.com/2007/01/19/blogging-in-the-wind/

Posted at 1:14PM on Jan 30th 2007 by Jason N

9. You want us to believe that you asked AOL to sell you Divester and that you DIDN'T also ask AOL to sell you Netscape.com?

I may have been born at night but, I wasn't born T.R. Knight.

see "Netscape, Calacanis & Google" http://www.tempcity.com/bitchless/index.php?showtopic=4566

Posted at 9:47PM on Jan 30th 2007 by Marion Paige

10. If they dont sell to you buy mediarati instead.

Posted at 6:32AM on Jan 31st 2007 by Victor

11. Jason,

I loved Divester! Every time I typed those little letters, www.divester.com it was like being on a boat heading out for a dive. The site delivered an escape from the craziness of reality.

Best
DH

Posted at 10:58AM on Feb 5th 2007 by David Harris