It has been one of the saddest days of my life: yet again another magazine I poured my heart and soul into is no more. In 2003 it was the Red Herring that shut down. Today, I attended the wake of Business 2.0, a magazine that was part of my life from 2003 through 2006.

At the time of Red Herring’s demise, I wrote an obit of the magazine for Salon, which talked about an end of an era and mainstreaming of technology. Business 2.0’s demise is less to do with the lack of readership and more to do with corporate decision making.

The good news – if you can call it that – is that Business 2.0 staff is finding its own footing. Some of them are going to work for the ambitious redesigned relaunch of Fortune.com, while others have found new homes. Erick Schonfeld, my colleague and East Coast counterpart is joining TechCrunch as Co-Editor. It is a great move: Erick is a natural born blogger, and Michael is a tycoon in the making.

Ashkan, with whom I had the pleasure of having dinner with sums up the big shift best in his post: “Connecting the dots from print to TV, in 1 or 2 years, blogs will be far more influential and important than they are today.”

It is the sign of the times. Sure, the blog collective will mature, but it will become even more enmeshed in the media collective. Erick, you made the right move. Welcome to the mad house… its fun!