With the decline of Yahoo so rapid it has a host of services which are either out-dated or under-utilized. Yahoo has been restructuring under former Googler Marisa Mayer as its CEO. Hence it is not surprising that Yahoo is systematically shutting down a host of not so popular services, something Google is known to do periodically.
Upcoming.org: The website was popular a few years ago to plan local events. Though the website had many redesigns under Yahoo, it never managed to become become big.This is an idea, that is still relevant as listing events locally is still something even Facebook has not managed to get right. Yahoo will be discontinuing ‘upcoming’ on 30th April.
Yahoo SMS Alerts: Yahoo allowed updates from its own services like Yahoo News, Yahoo Weather, Yahoo Sports and Finance. These updates were sent over as SMS text messages to mobile phones.
The day of SMS alerts seem to be over now. Yahoo recommends users to download their mobile aps for notifications. Users can also visit alerts.yahoo.com and select your alerts to be sent via email or on Yahoo Messenger instead of SMS. This service will be killed off on 30th April.
Older versions of Yahoo Mail: Many Yahoo mail users have been resistant to chance. Much of this is because Yahoo has been indulgent by hosting different versions of the UI for emails. One such popular one was Yahoo Mail classic version.
These old versions were mainly built for the dial-up era. Today, they seem to be irrelevant and are rightly being shut-down. The old versions of Yahoo Mail will be shut down on 3rd June 2013.
Other shutdowns: Yahoo Deals, Yahoo Kids, Yahoo Mail and Messenger feature phone apps (J2ME) are other services which Yahoo has decided to do away with. These services will also end on April 30, 2013.
Yahoo should have given users more time
Yahoo’s announcement leaves most users only 11 days notice (exception is older versions of Yahoo) before they shutdown these services. Eleven days is too little time for people to backup data or find alternatives. Compare that to Google which announced the the discontinuation of Google Reader but has given readers 3 months notice to find useful alternatives.
Have you used any of these services and more importantly will you miss any of these? Do drop in your comments.