Yahoo! is once again swinging a hatchet and cutting off limbs.
The news comes as Yahoo! is trying to sharpen the focus on the services that people use on a constant basis. A total of twelve products are being cut.
The two most well known products that are being removed are Yahoo! RSS Alerts and AltaVista. The others are less known.
Included on the list of items being closed are:
Yahoo! Axis, which will officially close June 28. According to Yahoo!’s announcement, the browser plugin will stop working on that date. The app will continue to work, but won’t be supported. We took a look at Axis when it launched and have tried it sporadically ever since. It was a product destined for just this kind of ending.
Citizen Sports will shut down June 28. Yahoo! recommends using Yahoo! Sports as an alternative.
Yahoo! Browser Plus, closing June 28.
Yahoo! WebPlayer is closing June 30. This is bound to be a headache for any WebPlayer publishers who are still active.
AltaVista closes July 8. Wow – remember when AltaVista was cool? It hasn’t been in a long, long, time.
FoxyTunes closes July 1, Yahoo! recommends Yahoo! Music instead.
Yahoo! Neighbors Beta closes July 8. Yahoo! suggests Yahoo! Local Search as an alternative.
Yahoo! RSS Alerts closes July 1, they recommend alerts by email using Yahoo! Alerts.
Yahoo! Downloads Beta closes July 31. Downloads for third-party programs will cease, buy Yahoo! will still use this for some of their own downloadable items.
The Yahoo! Term Extraction API ends September 28 and developers are being told to use YQL instead.
The Yahoo! Local API ends for good on September 28 as well.
Yahoo! Stars India will be shut down July 25, they recommend Yahoo! India OMG! as an alternative.
Why are these products being shut down?
Lack of use would be the simple answer, but Jay Rossiter, Yahoo! platforms vice president, puts it this way:
“Today we’re shutting down a few products so we can continue to focus on creating beautiful products that are essential to you every day.”
In April, 2013, Yahoo! killed other products like SMS Alerts and Yahoo Deals, referencing the same reason as above.
Will you miss any of these Yahoo! products?
Tell us which in the comments section below!
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