Yahoo announced, through its official blog, it will be shutting down seven of its products, including its BlackBerry application, effective April 1.
After a surprise announcement made by Yahoo late last month, which forbade employees to work from home henceforth, the company has made yet another sudden and surprise announcement.
"After much thought and deliberation, we decide to shut down some products," the company said. "Before making these decisions, we look at a variety of factors. The most critical question we ask is whether the experience is truly a daily habit that still resonates for all of you today."
Other products that will be shut down include Yahoo App Search, Yahoo Clues, Yahoo Message Boards, Yahoo Updates API, Yahoo Clues and Yahoo Avatars.
Yahoo Avatars will no longer exist effective April 1. However, before that, users can download their existing avatars and upload them later on their Yahoo profile pages. Also, effective April 1, the company will cease to provide active support for its BlackBerry application. However, users can continue to use the application if already downloaded but will receive no updates.
New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, a former Google employee, is conducting in Yahoo a process called "spring cleaning." Google also has a similar practice in place. During this process, the company cleans out all its products that are not doing so well in order to redeploy talent on more useful products.
"At Yahoo!, we're focused on making your daily habits more inspiring and entertaining," the company said. "This means that we're constantly reviewing and iterating on our products and experiences. In some cases, it means updating our products like we've done recently with our new welcome to Yahoo, Flickr for iPhone and iPod Touch and Yahoo Mail."
