Updated: The site has a still-unfunny closing down notice, here.
Time Inc‘s first experiment with web-only publications is about to end: the firm is closing Officepirates.com effective Sept. 1 after just six months, apparently due to poor traffic. Earlier this month, Media Week reported an insider as saying that Time hadn’t done enough to promote the site, which hadn’t managed to pull in the 340,000 monthly uniques needed to register in the ratings. The New York Post (who clearly had some fun with the whole pirate theme) quote an insider as saying the company decided to put its money elsewhere. Former Maxim ed-in-chief Mark Golin will stay on at Time as editor-at-large.
AdAge: “We have to be very careful to make sure that the limited amount of investment money that’s around is going against the greatest-scale projects. Office Pirates was on a much longer road to become a big business than some of our others,” said Ned Desmond, president of Time Inc. Interactive.  The one upside for Time Inc. is that it picked up some internet experience along the way, this story says. Oh, I thought that was Pathfinder’s mission…nevermind.
Related:
—Time Inc’s OfficePirates Not Doing So Well?
—OfficePirates.com: Pseudo-Pirates For Pseudo-Slackers