Yahoo targets Buzz, AltaVista, Delicious for death





NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Days after cutting its global workforce by 4%, Yahoo turned the axe on its product portfolio. Yahoo said Friday that it is killing Buzz, a two-year-old experiment in community news curation.

Buzz never took off, and its termination isn't much of a surprise. But deeper and more painful cuts are coming: According to a leaked screenshot of an internal webcast by Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving, the list of products slated for "sunset" also includes MyBlogLog, Yahoo Picks, AltaVista, Yahoo Bookmarks and Delicious.

Ex-Yahoo Eric Marcoullier -- who created MyBlogLog -- posted the screenshot, which has since been taken down, to his Twitter account. Irving shot back on Twitter: "Really dude? Can't wait to find out how you got the web cast. Whoever it is, gone!"

A Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500) spokeswoman confirmed by e-mail that the company is "cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products" does "plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others."

She declined to comment on the leaked screenshot or the fate of the other services, saying "we will communicate specific plans when appropriate."

But late Friday, Delicious posted on its blog: "No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive. We're in the process of exploring a variety of options and talking to companies right now."

Users of the targeted services weren't waiting around for official death notices. They took to Twitter early Friday to lash out at Yahoo. Fans of bookmarking site Delicious were especially irate.

"Dear #yahoo, you officially suck for shutting down Delicious, and I vow to never use you or your services again. Love, pissed-off-user," blasted one tweeter.

Launched in 2003, Delicious was acquired by Yahoo acquired in 2005 for an undisclosed sum. Though the bookmarking site is a cult favorite, data from Internet traffic tracker Compete shows a big dropoff in traffic: Around 525,000 unique users visited Delicious this November, versus almost 930,000 in the same month last year.

-- CNNMoney producer Allie Bell contributed to this report.