I don't know the full story but there was at one time a macbytes.com website that was a news aggregator. I'm not sure what happened to them but maybe MR took them over.
MacBytes used to take submissions and post links to interesting stories (but offer a way to have discussion on MR). Used to be featured on MR front page.
With this year's MR redesign, MR removed the macbytes section and posted stories on [xyz] blog section of MR instead.