Yahoo has just announced a change in strategy designed to prep it for the mobile age and let it concentrate on core products like the Mail and Weather apps it launched yesterday. Soon, it will shut down Upcoming, Deal, SMS Alerts, Yahoo Kids, Yahoo! Mail and Messenger feature phone (J2ME) apps, and some older versions of Yahoo! Mail. People simply don’t have the bandwidth for dozens of apps, so best to do a few well.
When I spoke to Yahoo earlier this year, representatives mentioned the company had over 80 mobile apps. Yet I know few people with any from Yahoo on their homescreen. That’s the real estate that truly matters, so cutting the fat and focusing on where it can really be best in class seems like a smart move.
The question now is what about Yahoo’s bigger products that don’t perform as well, such as Search and Maps. I heard rumors soon after Marissa Mayer took charge that she was not interested in competing with Google’s far superior maps product anymore. That means this could be just the first wave of shut downs.
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