Yahoo Axing Day 1: Cutting Half Of Media Unit
Several of Yahoo's digital magazines are being cut from the business altogether this week. These include Yahoo Food, Yahoo Health, Yahoo Parenting, Yahoo Makers, Yahoo Travel, Yahoo Autos and Yahoo Real Estate. The axing of these news portals will have many workers laid off while Yahoo's plan to "simplify" their business will have focus placed instead on their "four most successful content areas". Those include News, Sports, Finance, and Lifestyle. A small number of staff will be transferred from units that are shut down to units that will remain.
According to Yahoo's Martha Nelson, Global Editor-in-Chief, "these Digital Magazines will no longer be published, you will continue to find the topics they covered, as well as style, celebrity, entertainment, politics, tech and much more across our network."
In other words, if your favorite Yahoo digital magazine is on its way out, don't worry. The content may very well make its way over to one of the remaining digital magazines. If it's good enough, it'll survive.
Nelson's Tumblr entry noted that this was all part of Yahoo's recently outlined plan to simplify the business, as spoken of at the company's most recent earnings call.
According to Capital New York by Politico, Dan Tynan, editor-in-chief at Yahoo Tech revealed part of the news in a e-mail to staff earlier today.
"Well, that was not entirely unexpected," said Tynan, "Eight Hundred and Four days after taking the purple, my career as a Yahoo is over."
"I am sure that bigger and better things await all of us. As for Yahoo, I am sure it will continue to be Yahoo, for better or worse. And some day we'll all have a good laugh about it. Just not this week."
After mentioning the firing of 15% of Yahoo's staff during the company's most recent earnings report, CEO Marissa Mayer said "The Board is committed to the turnaround efforts of the management team and supportive of the plan announced today."
"We have tremendous respect for the thousands of Yahoos who work very hard to make the world a better place."
Through the future, Yahoo's message suggested, the company will consist of three global platforms. These platforms are Search, Mail, and Tumblr. Meanwhile Yahoo will have four verticals: News, Sports, Finance and Lifestyle.
The rest is toast.