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RSS is not dead. But Bloglines, one of the most venerable web-based RSS readers, is about to close shop next month. According to a report on TechCrunch, Bloglines' parent company IAC will make an official announcement later today and shut the service down on October 1. In the early days of RSS, Bloglines was the go-to feed reader for early adopters. Over the last few years, however, the company struggled to innovate and hold on to its users.

On Friday, the news we've known for some time was officially announced: Facebook has acquired check-in service Hot Potato. Hot Potato has updated its website with a "We're winding down soon" message and a link to its blog post detailing the acquisition. If you've got to make a "going out of business" announcement, then Hot Potato's is the kind that many startups would like to make.

When closing a business - whether it's a happy ending or a tragic one - there are undoubtedly a number of legal and financial obligations. But in addition to notifying your lawyers and accountants, what considerations should you make for your soon-to-be-former customers?

Last summer, while Twitter was struggling to keep its servers running consistently, a number of rivaling microblogging services like Plurk and Rejaw arrived on the scene, ready to capitalize on the imminent exodus of Twitter's disgruntled users. Twitter, however, was able to turn its fortunes around and is now just about as stable as any other online service. It is also growing at an impressive rate and has become the de facto standard for microblogging in most users' minds. For Twitter's competitors, however, this has meant that there are fewer users to go around, and today, Rejaw announced that it will shut down its servers on May 31st.