Yahoo Narrows Focus By Cutting Yahoo Kids, Upcoming, Yahoo Deals & More

Yahoo announced today that it is retiring five of its products at the end of this month, including Upcoming, Yahoo Kids and Yahoo Deals. Older versions of Yahoo Mail will be disabled as well on June 3.

In an attempt to narrow their focus, Yahoo stated they wanted to put their energy into building “beautiful products,” citing Yahoo Mail for iPad and Android tablets, and Yahoo Weather for iPhone, which were both introduced this week.

Upcoming, Yahoo’s events and calendar tool, will be cease to exist as of April 30, 2013, along with its API support. Other products scheduled to retire this month include Yahoo Kids, Yahoo Deals, SMS Alerts, and Yahoo Mail and Messenger feature phone (J2ME) apps.

The Yahoo announcement instructed Deal users to download their coupon information as it will no longer be available after April 30. Driving more users toward their mobile solutions, Yahoo encouraged SMS Alert users to take advantage of numerous Yahoo mobile apps.

Anyone using Yahoo Kids was offered a link to the Family Accounts program to register a Yahoo ID for users under 13 so that they could still use Yahoo Mail and Messenger to connect with family and friends.

About The Author

Amy Gesenhues

Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.