In the last two years, Yahoo has made a large number of changes to its core business, acquiring more than 40 companies to bolster various division of the company or open new areas of business. However, the company also ended more than 60 products in order to refine its vision since coming under the leadership of CEO Marissa Mayer. To that effect, Yahoo states three other products are coming to the end of their lives, as Yahoo Education, Directory and Qwiki will be closing down before 2015.
The move follows a similar announcement at the end of the last quarter, where users were informed services like Xobini, Yahoo Shine and Yahoo People Search were closing by the end of July. Senior Vice President of the Cloud Platform Group Jay Rossiter posted that the closing of services is done to help refine the vision of the company, which is now focused on four core areas of business.
“To achieve this focus, we have sunset more than 60 products and services over the past two years, and redirected those resources toward products that our users care most about and are aligned with our vision,” said Rossiter. “With even more smart, innovative Yahoos focused on our core products – search, communications, digital magazines, and video – we can deliver the best for our users.”
Directory is perhaps the closure that will affect users the least, but it played a significant part in the history of the company. The curated hierarchical list of websites was created by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994, but was renamed from Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web to Yahoo! later that year. Yahoo Directory will reach the end of its life on December 31, as Rossiter says the business evolved past it.
Qwiki, who made an app that’s used to create short videos using smartphone video footage or stills, will be shutting down November 1. Yahoo acquired the the company in 2013 for upwards of $50 million, but said at the time the app would still be supported. That stance has changed, as Yahoo states that some technologies are best used through integration. Qwiki’s team is still working for the search company on other projects. Those with content on Qwiki will be able to download it before the service is shut down.
Yahoo Education, a service that was used to connect education content and providers to users, is the final service to be cut from the lineup. Rossiter says that the company evaluates its services outside of its core business, identifying areas are found that are better serviced by others. Yahoo Education fit that criteria, leading to its closure on September 30.
