Yahoo Shutting Down Livestand App After Six Months
Yahoo on Friday announced plans to shut down its Livestand newspaper app after just six months on the market. Available via the Apple App Store the Livestand product was yet another failed attempt by Yahoo to expand its entertainment business.
On the official Yahoo Corporate Blog the company revealed that the discontinuation of Yahoo Livestand would allow the company to refocus its efforts on its “mobile-products-first” model which focuses on smartphones, tablets and other connected devices.
In the blog post Yahoo writes:
“When we discontinue products, it will be so that we can focus on opportunities where we lead and where we can create the most meaningful experiences for people using our products, and for our partners, developers and advertisers.”
Livestand has been well received by users, attaining a four-star review on the App Store however Yahoo now says they want to create “meaningful experiences” for users and advertisers which it has apparently not obtained through the well-received reviews.
Yahoo employees began building Livestand in 2010 but didn’t debut the application until November 2011, well after the popular iPad app “Flipboard” had already made a big splash among tablet and smartphone users.
Apple now plans to put greater emphasis on its Axis mobile browser and its desktop browser extension, both of which debuts this week with excellent reviews.
Yahoo is no stranger to discontinuing products, the company has recently let go of support for Yahoo’s Meme, Mim, Answers, AppSpot and various other applications which no longer develop the type of revenue or provide the type of advertising opportunities the company has reorganized itself around.
