Perhaps readying itself for a sale to Microsoft or Yahoo, Time Warner company AOL began cutting costs yesterday. One memo, from Kevin Conroy, AOL’s EVP of Products and Marketing, told employees AOL will "sunset" products Bluestring, Xdrive and AOL Pictures. MyAOL will go into maintenance-only mode and investment in AIMWorld — we've never heard of it either — is done. In a second memo, AOL subsidiary Weblogs Inc asked its pay-per-post bloggers writing for Diylife.com, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and DownloadSquad to stop filing until July 31. (Photo by AP/Sakuma)

Before the holidays, AOL products chief Kevin Conroy urged employees to send a form letter to their friends, family members, and business contacts talking up AOL's new products. "Team, excitement about the work we are doing ... starts with each one of us," Conroy emailed. His topdown directive did not spark any bottom-up fervor, it seems, as he had to forward the message again on Friday, asking employees for examples of get-out-the-users emails they'd sent. The full memo:

VIENNA, VA. — How do you now you're fired at an Internet company? When your biography's removed from the website. AOL's Lance Miyamoto, head of HR, has left the building. As a Valleywag tipster first told us and Silicon Alley Insider confirms, Miyamoto is the executive who's quitting in protest of new week's layoffs. (We had guessed, incorrectly, that it might be Kevin Conroy or BIll Wilson.) The question, though: Were AOL CEO Randy Falco and COO Ron Grant so furious over leaks that they fired him? Or was he allowed, nevertheless, to resign?

AOL's Dulles headquarters is wracked by rumors. We hear that one reason the company has writhed in the agony of impending layoffs is that its overworked human-resources department has been stretched to the limit by the task of preparing so many severance packages — otherwise, CEO Randy Falco and COO Ron Grant would have made the cuts sooner. October 16 continues to be the day people expect to get the sack. As the start of a pay period, the date will save AOL a bit of money by letting them include staffers' last paycheck as part of their severance. How thoughtful! For Time Warner's shareholders, at any rate. Sightings of boxes for employees' belongings are spreading, too. But there's one mystery: Which high-level AOL executive is quitting in protest of the layoffs?