Yahoo is throwing another of its online services to the dogs in the name of cost-cutting and focusing on its business fundamentals: in an email message to users, Yahoo has announced that it will be shutting down MyBlogLog on May 24, 2011. The annoucement doesn’t come as a major surprise—MyBlogLog was listed among the services Yahoo said it was likely to “sunset” back in December. Users who have paid for premium MyBlogLog services that extend beyond the May 24 shutdown date will receive refunds from Yahoo.
Yahoo acquired MyBlogLog back in 2007 for about $10 million. The idea behind the service was to enable blog owners to roll a community feature into their sites, facilitating discussion and user engagement—and, of course, page hits. When Yahoo acquired MyBlogLog, more than 45,000 blogs featured the service. These days, however, blogs are more likely to tap into massive social networking services like FaceBook and Twitter rather than try to roll their own services.
Other services that Yahoo face being “sunsetted” by Yahoo include Yahoo Buzz, AltaVista (the search engine that virtually ruled the Web before Google), Yahoo Picks, Yahoo Bookmarks, and the long-lived (and much-loved) bookmarking service delicio.us. Yahoo has since said it is looking to find a buyer for del.icio.us so the service can continue operating post-Yahoo.
