Six more Yahoo products getting the axe

Steven Loeb · April 20, 2013 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/2ef3

Say goodbye to Upcoming, Deals, SMS Alerts, Kids, and old versions of Mail

Yahoo's effort to focus on mobile has claimed some more victims. The company is, once again, shutting down a number of its services to become more streamlined.

This time it is a coupon site, a local events calendar and old versions of mail that are among those products are that will soon be killed off, it was revealed Friday.

"Like we announced last month, we want to bring you experiences that inspire and entertain you every day. That means taking a hard look at all of our products to make sure they are still central to your daily habits. As part of that ongoing effort, today we are shutting down a few more products," Jay Rossiter, EVP of Platforms at Yahoo, said in a statement, "We realize that change is hard, but by making tough decisions like these we can focus our energy on building beautiful products for you like the two we introduced this week - Yahoo! Mail for iPad and Android tablets and Yahoo! Weather for iPhone."

Yahoo is getting rid of its local events calender Upcoming and its API, Deals, SMS Alerts and Kids

For Upcoming users who uploaded events, they can go here to download their information and Deal users can go here to save their coupons.

While SMS Alerts are being halted, Yahoo encourages its users to follow its new sites with its mobile apps for News, Weath, Sports and Finance. Users can also set it up so that they receive alerts through e-mail or Yahoo Messenger.

As for Yahoo Kids, formerly known as Yahooligans, Yahoo notes that its users who are under 13 can still register for a Yahoo ID through the company's Family Accounts program.

In addition, Yahoo is also shutting down Yahoo Mail and Messenger apps for feature phones (J2ME). These users will still be able to use the mobile web versions of those services.

And, finally, Yahoo is getting rid of old versions of Mail. Users are being encouraged to use the new version of mail, except for those on a slow connection, who will be able to use an HTML only / basic version of the new Mail.

All of the above services will be shut down on April 30th, except for the old versions of Mail, which will remain until June 3rd. 

In March, Yahoo decided to jettison Yahoo Avatars, Yahoo app for Blackberry, Yahoo Clues, Yahoo App Search, Yahoo Sports IQ, Yahoo Message Boards website and Yahoo Updates API. 

With this iniative, Yahoo seems to be taking a page from Google, which has also been going through the process of dumping its old and outdated programs. Since 2011, it has altered or removed over 50 products, including Google Apps for Teams, Google Listen and Google Video for Business, as well at least 150 Google-created blogs for products and services, in August.

Most recently, the company dumped its free version of its Google Apps For Businesses.

Recent Yahoo news

Earlier this week, Yahoo shared its Q1 2013 earnings report, whiched reveals higher than expected earnings per share, but a slight drop in revenue. Specifically, the company generated $1.07 billion in revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs (ex-TAC), while analysts were expecting $1.1 billion ex-TAC.

Additionally, non-GAAP income from operations was down to $224 million in Q1 2013, compared to $231 million in Q1 2012.

But on the plus side, EPS beat analysts’ expectations at 38 cents per share, while many were expecting 27 cents per share.

Yahoo shares were up 0.90% in Friday trading, ending the day up 21 cents to $23.47 a share.

(Image source: https://fineartamerica.com)

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