Yahoo to close 7 products, including BlackBerry app

Yahoo is taking a leaf out of Google's business book, and closing down seven products that aren't bringing home the bacon.

These are: Yahoo App Search, Yahoo Sports IQ, Yahoo Clues, Yahoo Message Boards, Yahoo Updates API, Yahoo Avatars, and the Yahoo app for BlackBerry.

Yahoo announced the closures on its company blog. It said it was regulating its product line-up, and would do so regularly. "The most critical question we ask is whether the experience is truly a daily habit that still resonates for all of you today," Jay Rossiter, Yahoo's executive vice president of Platforms, wrote on the blog.

It's the second batch of products that have been given the heave-ho since Marissa Meyer took over as CEO. Mayer was previously at Google, where "spring cleaning" announcements -- in which it nixes products and services that aren't performing well -- are a regular occurrence.

Mayer also banned Yahoo employees from working from home recently, sparking a debate over whether it was more productive to go to an office every day.

More cuts are on the way, too. Mayer told a conference last month that Yahoo would reduce the number of mobile apps it offers from its current total of between 60 and 75 to a more manageable 12 to 15.

Yahoo's Blackberry app won't be available for download, or be supported, after 1 April. It shows Yahoo doesn't have much faith in the platform, seeing as its apps for other mobile operating systems will continue as they are.

Yahoo Avatars tend to be quite popular, with many using custom avatars on the Yahoo Answers boards. If you want to keep your avatar, you'll have to download it and manually re-upload it as your profile picture.

What do you think of Yahoo's product offering? Is it right to cut these services? Or should others have got the chop ahead of them? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.