Eliminating services is something that happens all the time in business but when you're an enormous worldwide brand it tends to draw a lot of attention.
Yahoo is the fourth most visited website in the world. Since its inception in 1994, the search engine has been a powerhouse on the Internet falling only to the big three (Google, Facebook and YouTube). As Yahoo tries to counter the ever-changing desires of Internet goers, they have announced the removal of under-performing services via a blog post from Jay Rossiter, SVP of Cloud Platform Group at Yahoo.
Having already eliminated Newlook Service, Research Reports and Bookmarks.yahoo prior to June, the search engine is in the process of eliminating six new features.
People Search, a service used to find people, blogs, places etc., and Xobni, an email organization service, were both shut down as of July 2. Yahoo's Chrome Toolbar, which allows users to make a quick search on Yahoo from the Google Web browser, will be shut down on July 22.
The remaining three features: Yahoo Shine, a women's lifestyle service, Yahoo Voices, an information publishing service, and Yahoo Contributor Network, an online publishing platform, are all being eliminated from Yahoos repertoire on July 31.
At the end of the blog post Rossiter stated "By focusing our energy on Yahoo's four core areas - Search, Communications, Digital Magazines and Video - and the two incredible engines that power them, Flickr and Tumblr, we can make a bigger impact on the things people do everyday."