Yahoo (YHOO) will stop production of its personalized iPad magazine effort,
Livestand, just seven months after it debuted, the company announced in a blog
post Friday.
The Sunnyvale Internet giant, which is attempting to refocus its
priorities as it loses Internet advertising market share to Google (GOOG) and
Facebook with its fourth CEO in less than a year, launched the flashy,
personalized digital magazine app in November.
The service featured Yahoo content such as Yahoo Finance and Yahoo
Sports, as well as ABC, Forbes magazine, Parenting magazine and an assortment
of publications devoted to sports and hobbies. Yahoo planned to allow
publishers the chance to sell subscriptions through Livestand this year.
The iPad app was originally announced in February 2011, but took months
to arrive. Meanwhile, other, similar options found popularity, such as
Flipboard, which Apple (AAPL) called its App of the Year for 2010.
"While we received great feedback on Livestand's design and it earned a 4-star rating in the
App Store, we committed ourselves to continuously measure and scrutinize
what's working and what isn't. We have learned a lot from Livestand and are
actively applying those insights toward the development of future products
that are better aligned with Yahoo's holistic mobile strategy," Yahoo manager
Regan Clark wrote in the Friday blog post announcing the product would be
discontinued.
Yahoo is currently searching for a new direction under interim CEO Ross
Levinsohn, who took over for Scott Thompson, who stepped down less than six
months into his tenure after an activist investor revealed that a computer
science degree the former PayPal president claimed on his bio was never
earned. Thompson had replaced interim CEO Tim Morse, who stepped in after
Carol Bartz was ousted from the position in September.
Yahoo stock increased by 1 cent to $15.36 Friday.
Mercury News and Associated Press archives contributed to this report.
