Yahoo Kills Livestand App

by Mark Walsh, May 25, 2012, 5:56 PM

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Yahoo is pulling the plug on Livestand, the digital newsstand app for the iPad it finally launched only six months ago after a long development period. The company said it was discontinuing Livestand as part of a broader plan to scrap about 50 non-performing properties outlined during its first-quarter conference call.

Livestand entered a crowded field in the newsreader category, with competing apps from the likes of Zinio, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Flipboard and Pulse.

Despite positive feedback and a four-star rating in the App Store, “we committed ourselves to continuously measure and scrutinize what’s working and what isn’t,” stated a Yahoo blog post Friday. That Livestand had gotten less than 2,000 ratings in the App Store since November suggests it wasn’t heavily downloaded. (Mobile Insider columnist Steve Smith slammed the app in a review at launch.)

Yahoo had also rolled out a specialized ad format called Live Ads for Livestand, which presumably has been shelved as well.

The company, nevertheless, plans to embrace a “mobile-products-first” development model exemplified by its release of the new cross-platform Axis browser. “There’s no doubt that one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, priorities for us is to innovate for the mobile user, whether they’re using feature phones, smartphones or tablets – or iOS apps, Android apps or mobile web browsers, for that matter,” according to the post.

Yahoo said it will apply what it learned from users’ interactions with Livestand toward building future mobile products.

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