Yahoo Makes Major Cuts In Services As Mobile Ramps Up

This afternoon the folks at Yahoo have announced their intent to end services with Yahoo Deals, Yahoo SMS Alerts, Yahoo Kids, and the feature phone versions of Yahoo Mail and Messenger. While the smartphone versions of both Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail will (of course) continue to roll forward, both the feature phone versions and legacy smartphone versions of these apps "will be going away", as Yahoo reports. This is all part of Yahoo's move into the mobile universe they've been vocal about this week more than once.

This set of updates includes an April 30th shutdown date for several of the services listed. If you're using Yahoo's "Upcoming" service, you're out on the 30th – the same goes for Yahoo Deals and Yahoo SMS Alerts. Those amongst you that've been making use of Yahoo Kids will be kicked as of April 30th, and users under 13 hoping to continue using Yahoo services will beed to do so with Yahoo's Family Accounts program.

If you'd like to gain access to Yahoo's Family Account's program, you have only to head down to the Yahoo Family Accounts Program webspace where you'll learn more about all sorts of family-friendly services including Yahoo Movies – which will NOT be shutting down, incidentally.

With the launch of the newest iterations – and major changes – to Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Weather shown off this week, the company is cutting out the dead weight. Feature phone (J2ME) devices will no longer have support from Yahoo – time to join the future! Yahoo Mail apps for iOS, Android, and Windows 8 as well as Yahoo Messenger apps for iOS as well as Android will be updated through the future – grab on tight!

[via Yahoo]