Layoffs apparently aren't the only thing Yahoo is doing to slim down size and cut expenses:
A screenshot from a company Webcast began circulating Thursday that claims the company will be shutting down Yahoo Buzz, MyBlogLog, Delicious, AllTheWeb.com, Yahoo Picks, and AltaVista; as well as merging and consolidating a handful of other products like geolocation service Fire Eagle and event listing site Upcoming.The screenshot was originally posted to Twitter by Eric Marcoullier, a former Yahoo employee who had been the founder of MyBlogLog, a Yahoo acquisition that will now be shuttered.
"Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond," a statement provided by Yahoo read. "We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate."
Closing small products, many of them acquisitions in the first place, to cut costs is akin to Google's announcement in early 2009 of a bulk product shutdown that saw the death of Dodgeball, Jaiku, Notebook, and Catalog Search. But it's a significantly more dire situation at Yahoo, which has been troubled for years now. Yahoo's layoffs, announced Tuesday, cut four percent of the company's global head count as it continues to struggle for a turnaround under the leadership of CEO Carol Bartz.
Many of the Yahoo products being shut down are social-media apps that are long-shot rivals to offerings from the likes of Facebook, Google, Digg, and Foursquare. This year, Yahoo bought a number of products like Associated Content and launched services like Yahoo Deals that further its attempts to be a media and advertising-based company; Yahoo's attempts to build a social network, like Yahoo 360 and Mash, were already shut down long ago.
One of the soon-to-be-euthanized apps, Delicious, will be a painful one for many: A social-Web pioneer founded in New York, the bookmarking service was one of the first hints at the promise of "social news," and remains a favorite among loyalists.
source: agency
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