Yahoo to discontinue Livestand app after six months
updated 06:25 pm EDT, Fri May 25, 2012
App discontinued despite high ratings
Yahoo announced today that the company will be discontinuing its personalized digital newspaper app, Livestand, after just six months of availability in the App Store. As detailed in a posting on the Yahoo Corporate Blog, the move is part of a greater push by the web company to refocus its efforts into a mobile-products-first model, with a greater focus on software offerings for tablets, smartphones, and other connected devices.
The Livestand app had attained a four-star review rating on Apple's App Store, but today's blog posting says that the app will be discontinued so that Yahoo can focus on opportunities where the company leads and can create "meaningful experiences" for users, partners, developers, and advertisers. The nod to advertisers, in particular, could be a tacit acknowledgement that the app, while attaining good reviews, couldn't generate the critical mass of users (and, subsequently, advertising revenues) necessary to justify further development support.
The discontinuation of Livestand puts the app in the company of Yahoo's Meme, Mim, Answers, AppSpot, and a number of other now-unsupported apps. In the wake of Livestand's discontinuation, Yahoo will place greater emphasis on its new Axis mobile browser and accompanying desktop browser extension, which have also debuted to solid reviews.
