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Yahoo To Shutter Technology Driven Divisions Including Delicious

Having just announced more layoffs, Yahoo now plans to phase out a slew of once-promising products, including Delicious, MyBlogLog, Yahoo Bookmarks, Yahoo Buzz, and AltaVista. "Of course they are!" seems like the general industry reaction.

Even those properties that Yahoo acquired, including Delicious and MyBlogLog, have been "somewhat neglected," writes TechCrunch.



"While the layoffs and shutdowns obviously indicate a de-emphasis of technology products by Yahoo, they aren't necessarily unwarranted," writes AllThingsD's NetworkEffect blog. "Some of these products were the same as those mentioned on then-SVP Brad Garlinghouse's infamous Peanut Butter Memo way back in 2006 as candidates for streamlining."

Expected or not, the neglect and eventual demise of these products has struck a nerve with tech watchers.

Regarding social bookmarking service Delicious, ReadWriteWeb mourns, "It's a loss not just for the many people who used Delicious to archive links of interest to them around the web, it's a loss for the future -- for what could have been."

"Delicious was also a social system ahead of its time-and that gives a glimpse of how much opportunity in the area Yahoo squandered," the Financial Times scolds.

Implying that misery does, in fact, love company, FT.com adds: "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."

In a statement, Yahoo said: "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 in the next year and beyond."

Earlier this week, Chief Executive Carol Bartz told the Associated Press she would increase operating profit margins to as much as 24% by 2013. As the Los Angeles Times notes, that would be from about 12% through the first nine months of this year.



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