The editorial collective that edits ArborUpdate has decided to shut down operations. citing the growth of other forums for community discussion and a narrowing of the focus. From the farewell notice:

After years of updating, the ArborUpdate crew is taking a break. It may be temporary, it may be permanent, but for now the ArborUpdate sign is flipped to “closed.”

ArborUpdate.com was a volunteer-run news and discussion site for the Ann Arbor community which started in 2004. It continued the work of Rob Goodspeed, whose Goodspeed Update served as a news blog covering the University of Michigan and was rated 2004 Michigan Daily best blog.

The announcement message at the time read:

A project I initiated over a month ago with a group of other local bloggers was launched this week. Arborupdate.com is an edited, blog-style news website focusing on Ann Arbor which went live late Tuesday, and has reached nearly 700 unique visitors in five days. I am excited about the project, and I plan on focusing my energies on it over the next few months.

Julie Weatherbee explains ArborUpdate on Media Giraffe. "We do struggle with finding people to commit to it, it's strictly volunteer."

Rob Goodspeed ran a long series on the Michigamua secret society at the University of Michigan while he was a Michigan undergraduate student.

Arbor Update's coverage of urban chickens, 415 W. Washington St. development, and transportation are pretty good collections of what was going on when those issues were in the center of people's minds.

I'll be writing more about ArborUpdate for tomorrow's link roundup on AnnArbor.com.

Edward Vielmetti is the lead blogger for AnnArbor.com, and participates in the discussion here, of which ArborUpdate says "while the discussion on AnnArbor.com isn’t always refined, it’s better than what the Ann Arbor News had with Mlive." Reach him at edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com .