ICv2.com has a little more on the abrupt closing on Friday of AnimeOnline, tying it to staff cutbacks at sister company FUNimation, the anime producer and distributor. Both are owned by Minnesota-based Navarre Corporation.

According to ICv2.com, FUNimation has cut its staff by about 10 percent.

AnimeOnline launched in February as a source for anime and manga news, and as a networking site for fans.

On Friday afternoon, editor-in-chief Rob Bricken posted an announcement that Navarre and FUNimation had decided to “pull the plug” on the site. By 6 p.m., AnimeOnline had been taken off-line, and its content replaced with a message that points to technical issues discovered during beta testing as the reason for the abrupt closing.

A spokesperson for FUNimation told ICv2, “We’ve gained tremendous knowledge from this beta test and look forward to integrating this knowledge in future endeavors.”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 7:28 am and is filed under Animation, Fandom, Industry, Internet, Manga. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.