The Times They Are a Changing…and These Apps They are A-Going

As all of you know, the mobile space moves incredibly fast. Our users are changing, and their needs are changing. New devices and new technologies are coming to market seemingly every day, not to mention the rate at which app stores are growing. All of us are looking for the freshest, most interesting apps and content all day, every day.

At Yahoo!, we’re focused on creating deeply personal digital experiences and there’s no doubt that one of the biggest, if not the biggest, priorities for us is to bring those products and ideas to the mobile user, whether they’re using feature phones, smartphones or tablets.

We’ve got some amazing mobile experiences, from News, Sports and Finance, to Mail, Messenger and entirely new products like IntoNow and Livestand. Our commitment is to deliver these products in ways that help all of our users (and advertisers) enjoy engaging and seamless experiences across all the devices they use.

Our plan is to keep moving, to keep innovating, and to continuously measure and scrutinize what’s working and what isn’t – so we can make room for great new products. In that spirit, today we’re decommissioning several of our current mobile apps. We will be sending a notification later today that thefollowing apps will no longer be supported:

•               Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone)

•               Yahoo! Mim (iPad)

•               Yahoo! Answers (Android)

•               Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone)

•               Yahoo! Deals (iPhone)

•               Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry)

•               Yahoo! Movies (Android)

•               Yahoo! News (Android)

•               Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone)

•               Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone)

We’re moving forward with a “mobile first” mindset. You can expect to see more new Yahoo! mobile products in 2012, especially in areas ripe for innovation that build on Yahoo!’s strengths, such as companion experiences for TV like IntoNow, new ways to experience personalized media like Livestand, and some of our most popular and useful mobile apps like Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Sportacular and Flickr, which are already being used by millions of people around the world. And we’ll be building these experiences with disruptive technology that’s going to change the mobile game well beyond Yahoo!.

For apps such as AppSpot and Sketch-a-Search, we decided to integrate the key features you know and love into the Yahoo! Search app. For example, we recently announced the app search feature in the Yahoo! Search app for iPhone. Stay tuned for moreupdates to the mobile search apps for both iPhone and Android.

With more than 700 million users around the world, we’ve got a huge and growing audience. We’re going to bring them the Yahoo! they love on every device in their life.

Stay tuned for a lot of action from Yahoo this year. 2012 has just begun and we’re just getting started.