Yahoo! has announced it is shutting down seven products that weren’t yielding any profit, including the mobile app for BlackBerry smartphones. Yahoo believes the move will help focus more on its important assets.
“After much thought and deliberation, we decide to shut down some products. Before making these decisions, we look at a variety of factors. The most critical question we ask is whether the experience is truly a daily habit that still resonates for all of you today,” the company announced in its official blog.
Besides the Yahoo app for BlackBerry devices, the products set to be phased out are Yahoo App Search, Yahoo Clues, Yahoo Message Boards, Yahoo Updates API, Yahoo Clues and Yahoo Avatars.
For Yahoo! Avatars, the company will end support with effect from April 1, 2013. Yahoo is ending support for the Avatars YQL table from the same day.
Effective April 1, 2013, the Yahoo app for BlackBerry will no longer be available for download. Users can use the app if already downloaded, but the company won’t be providing any active support to the app.
Yahoo Clues (beta), Yahoo App Search , Yahoo Sports IQ and Yahoo Message Boards website are shutting down on April 1, 2013. Moreover, Yahoo Updates API will no longer be supported from April 16, 2013.
The latest announcement is Yahoo’s second group shutdown of products since Mayer, a former Google executive, became CEO of the web portal in July last year. It’s notable that Google has been conducting a similar campaign, which it calls “spring cleaning”, to phase out products and services over the month.
“At Yahoo!, we’re focused on making your daily habits more inspiring and entertaining. This means that we’re constantly reviewing and iterating on our products and experiences. In some cases, it means updating our products like we’ve done recently with our new welcome to Yahoo, Flickr for iPhone and iPod Touch and Yahoo Mail,” added the company in the blog post.