Is Yahoo about to kill Delicious?

Updated

It looks like Yahoo’s cost-cutting efforts go beyond its recent layoffs. The company plans to “sunset” (i.e., shut down) a number of products including social bookmarking service Delicious, according to what looks like a leaked slide from a company-wide presentation.

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The slide was posted on Twitter by Eric Marcoullier, who co-founded blog social network MyBlogLog, another service listed in the “sunset” column. The slide says that Yahoo Picks, AltaVista, Yahoo Buzz, and other services are also targeted for shutdown.

The decision isn’t a huge surprise, since Yahoo hasn’t really included Delicious when talking about how the company has revamped its products and infrastructure, and traffic to the site seems to be petering off. Yahoo acquired the then-hot startup in 2005.

Delicious founder Joshua Schachter has already moved on from Yahoo, going to Google and then founding a stealthy social startup. Marcoullier has moved on too, co-founding OneTrueFan, a service that connects publishers with their most loyal fans.

I’ve emailed Yahoo for confirmation and will update if I hear back.

Update: AllThingsDigital’s Liz Gannes spotted a tweet from Yahoo’s chief product officer Blake Irving, that basically confirms the slide is real and implies that whoever leaked it will be fired. He says to Marcoullier: “Really dude? Can’t wait to find out how you got the web cast. Whoever it is, gone!”

And here’s Yahoo’s statement:

Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond. We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo! Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate.

[top image via Flickr/Duncan Harris]

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