Sunnyvale, California -- It seems like Yahoo has not done eliminating “non-core” services quite yet. “10 Million Dollars Down the Drain!” The company says it is going to shutter another popular blogging widget MyBlogLog next month, leaving more than a few people scratching their heads.
Still remember MyBlogLog? way back in 2006, it was one of the most popular social networking tool for bloggers because of one simple reason -- it allowed bloggers to put a face on their blog visitors.
Founded in Jan. 2005, MyBlogLog was sold to Yahoo in Jan. 2007 for $10 million, and then began the odd case of how the search company really did nothing with it. MyBlogLog was a pretty useful blog management tool back then. Its widget feature was interesting. And its ability to show you blog-related trends and information was invaluable.
Now, according to industry sources that says the service will be pulled down next month, just once again proving that Yahoo has no clue what it is doing when it comes to social networking. Mash and SpotM are just a couple of the other failed social sites from Yahoo, and MyBlogLog will soon be added to the list.
The company says it is considering shutting down MyBlogLog, a social networking service built around blogs that it acquired two-and-a-half years ago for $10 million. ReadWriteWeb cited sources yesterday who said MyBlogLog would be closed down next month.
A Yahoo spokesman said in a statement, however, that nothing has been decided. On the Yahoo Developer Network Blog, the company says it is “actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog” and says that a shut down is “an option but there are other options as well.'
The Sunnyvale, Calif., company has issued the following statement regarding MyBlogLog's future:
Frankly, it is no secret within Yahoo! that we are actively discussing the future of MyBlogLog. However, it is also true that we have not made any final decisions at this point. Is a shutdown on the table? Sure, that is an option. But there are other options as well. We know this creates some uncertainty for current MyBlogLog users. While we are not quite ready to share more details, we promise to keep you posted.
The possible shutdown is the result as Yahoo has discontinued nearly a dozen of its products this year; most of those cutbacks, however, were announced through June. If the company does go ahead and close down MyBlogLog it once again does not speak well to its track record with acquisitions.
MyBlogLog was originally created by Cloudspace out of Florida, and was acquired by Yahoo in January 2007. The company paid over 10 million dollars for it. According to Wikipedia, there were over 45,000 blogs subscribed to it at the time, and it currently has 275,000 registered users.
It is no secret that Yahoo is trimming costs wherever it can. For example, earlier this year, they closed down the once popular Geocities. Just this week, they announced that they would be closing their offices for a whole week to save a little dough.
No mention of the demise of the service is mentioned on the MyBlogLog blog.
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