A little piece of Internet history, long eclipsed by the Google behemoth, is fading into the sunset.
Yahoo Inc. will soon shut down AltaVista, an early Web search engine that was popular in the mid-late 1990s, along with a host of other products it owns.
The information was leaked on popular social networking website Twitter, by Eric Marcoullier, founder of MyBlogLog, an online community for bloggers that was bought by Yahoo in January, 2007, for a reported sum of more than $10-million (U.S.). MyBlogLog is another one of the products being wound down by Yahoo, according to a screen-capture photo of a webcast for Yahoo staffers that Mr. Marcoullier posted online.
The photo shows a column of "sunset" products including AltaVista, Yahoo! Buzz, Delicious, and others. The slide also indicates other products to be merged, and Yahoo's plans to feature certain products such as the translation service BabelFish.
Yahoo spokesperson Dana Lengkeek did not immediately confirm whether the slide was indeed from today's presentation, but did provide a statement from Yahoo.
"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," the statement said. "We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo! Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate."
While Yahoo would not confirm specific product plans, the authenticity of the leaked slide seemed to be further confirmed by Blake Irving, executive vice-president and chief product officer at Yahoo, who chided Mr. Marcoullier (who tweets under the identity @bpm140) in a Twitter message.
" @bpm140 @joshu Really dude? Can't wait to find out how you got the web cast. Whoever it is, gone!" Mr. Irving wrote.
The news comes a day after Yahoo announced to its employees that it was beginning another round in a series of layoffs that have occurred in the past couple of years. It plans to cut roughly 600 jobs, or 4 per cent of its work force.
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THE CUTS
Here are some of the products Yahoo Inc. plans to phase out, according to today's leaked presentation slide.
AltaVista
A now-antiquated search engine, popular in the days before Google's ubiquity was cemented. Acquired by Yahoo when it bought parent company Overture Services Inc. in 2004 for $1.63 billion (U.S.) in cash and shares.
Delicious
A site that helps users organize their bookmarked websites. del.icio.us Inc. was acquired by Yahoo in December 2005. At the time, it had roughly 300,000 users.
Yahoo! Buzz
A news aggregation site where users post links to news articles, and prioritize what appears most prominently on the site by recommending certain links.
MyBlogLog
Founded by Eric Marcoullier, who leaked the Yahoo slide on Twitter on Thursday. The social networking website for bloggers was bought by Yahoo in January 2007 for a reported sum of more than $10 million (U.S.)
AlltheWeb
Another also-ran in the Google-dominated search engine space, owned by Yahoo since it bought Overture in 2004, which also owned AltaVista.
Yahoo! Bookmarks
Another service for organizing bookmarked links to a user's favourite websites.
