Mac Publishing LLC, the owners of MacCentral, MacWeek, Macworld, and a joint venture of Ziff Davis and International Data Group (IDG), has announced that MacWeek will be folded into MacCentral.com. The company cites the need to streamline their operations, and has eliminated 8 staff members from the organization. The changes go into effect as of next Monday, March 5th. Late last week, maccentral.com traffic was redirected to maccentral.macworld.com. According to Mac Publishing LLC:

In a move to streamline operations, Mac Publishing, L.L.C. announced it will consolidate two of its Macintosh-related Web sites, integrating the content of MacWEEK.com into MacCentral.com as of Monday, March 5th, 2001.

Company executives said the reorganization of online operations would result in a staff reduction of approximately 8.5 percent, or about seven people. None of Mac Publishingis other divisions are or will be affected.

"It was a difficult decision," stated Colin Crawford, President and CEO of Mac Publishing, L.L.C. "However, in todayis market, it no longer makes sense for us to spread our resources among three news products."

"We believe we can meet the needs of the Macintosh community more efficiently through the headline news on MacCentral.com and the more in-depth coverage on Macworld.com," he added. "We are providing all affected employees with severance packages, as well as assistance with finding new jobs."

Mac Publishing also publishes Macworld magazine, its flagship monthly journal, covering all aspects of products related to Macintosh personal computers. The company is an independent entity and unrelated to Apple Computer, Inc. MacWEEK launched in 1987 as a weekly print trade publication.

In 1997, MacWEEK was acquired as part of a joint venture between Ziff Davis and International Data Group, thereby creating Mac Publishing, L.L.C. In 1998, Mac Publishing decided to retain the MacWEEK brand as a Web-only publication to continue providing industry news analysis for the Macintosh computing market.

Andrew Gore, Editor-in-Chief of Macworld Magazine, has published a piece called "Requiem for a Magazine." Only MacWeek is running the announcement as of press time, and the above press release was sent out over Business Wire.

Update: Mac Publishing LLC President and CEO Colin Crawford told The Mac Observer in reference to our questions about the nature of the move:

As noted, the news analysis that was MacWEEKis strength will continue in both MacCentral and Macworld.com. You will continue to see many familiar names.

As noted in our Spin, it is unclear which staff members will remain with the newly organized publications.