Yahoo to shut down some services including Yahoo Maps

Yahoo Inc said it would shut down some of its services, including Yahoo Maps, as it realigned itself to focus on search and digital content.

Maps.yahoo.com would shut down by the end of this month, Amotz Maimon, Yahoo's chief architect, said in a blog post, as the service faced stiff competition from Google Inc's Maps service.

Yahoo's search and other services including photo-sharing site Flickr would continue to support Yahoo Maps, Maimon said.

The steps come following efforts by chief executive Marissa Mayer to revive meaningful revenue growth with a string of acquisitions and product revamps.

Mayer had been under pressure to make accelerate the strengthening of the company's media and advertising business.

Yahoo was scaling back mail support on the built-in Mail app for older versions of Apple Inc's iPhone operating system, Maimon said yesterday.

According to Yahoo, the Philippines homepage would be shuttered and the company would also close Yahoo Music services in France and Canada as also Yahoo Movies in Spain.

Media services such as Yahoo TV and Yahoo Autos would no longer be available in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy at the end of June.

Yahoo Pipes would not allow creation of new pipes after 30 August and would run only in read-only mode until 30 September when it would be completely shut down.

The company last month, revamped its Flickr service, and pushed out a major update to its Flickr apps on mobile and desktop platforms, as also the web service, completely overhauling the UI.

The updated apps for Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows were now available and the design now helped users better organise their photos along with easy locating and sharing of images and videos.