Yahoo is planning to kill off a handful of enduring and quirky services, including the pioneering bookmarking service Delicious, as it continues to streamline operations.
Shortly after the company confirmed that it would be firing more than 500 staffers, mainly in its products group, a disgruntled employee leaked a slide from a meeting this week that listed Delicious and story-spotting function Buzz as among the offerings facing “sunset”.A Yahoo spokesman didn’t dispute the authenticity of the document and confirmed that Buzz and other services would get the axe in “coming months”.
“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,” said a company spokesgrinch.
As recently as two years ago, Delicious had more than 5 million users, and word of its imminent demise provoked howls of protest. Bought by Yahoo in 2005, back when it was called del.icio.us, the Silicon Valley company allowed surfers to save web addresses in one place and then access those favourites from anywhere.
Delicious was also a social system ahead of its time–and that gives a glimpse of how much opportunity in the area Yahoo squandered. Users tagged stories on the web with keywords that seemed to fit, then could search on those keywords to see what others found most relevant on the topic.
Yahoo employees have been suffering from low morale as their numbers thin. Now they may feel less alone: Yahoo’s enormous audience is starting to feel the pinch as well, one bit at a time.
