The product shutdowns, which Yahoo
announced on its official company blog on
Friday, are part of what the company said
are regular efforts to evaluate and review its
product lineup.
“The most critical question we ask is
whether the experience is truly a daily habit
that still resonates for all of you today,”
wrote Jay Rossiter, Yahoo’s executive vice
president of Platforms.
The announcement represents Yahoo’s
second group shutdown of products since
Mayer, a former Google executive, became
CEO of the struggling Web portal in July.
So-called “spring cleaning” announcements,
in which multiple products are shut down,
have become a regular feature at Google in
recent years.
Mayer signaled the company would prune
its line-up of mobile apps at an investor
conference last month, noting that Yahoo
would reduce the 60 to 75 disparate mobile
apps it currently has to a more manageable
12 to 15 apps.
Yahoo said its app for Blackberry
smartphones would no longer be available
for download, or supported by Yahoo, as of
April 1.
Yahoo also said that on April 1 it will stop
supporting Yahoo Avatars – the cartoon-like
digital characters that consumers create to
depict them on Web services such as Yahoo
instant messenger and Facebook. Consumers who want to continue using their avatar on Yahoo’s online services must download the avatar and then re-upload the information to their personalized Yahoo profile.
The other Yahoo products set to be
terminated include Yahoo App Search,
Yahoo Sports IQ, Yahoo Clues, the Yahoo
Message Boards website and the Yahoo
Updates API.
Channelstv.com
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