A strange note at the top of the web site that appeared in the last couple of days:
Yahoo! apologizes deeply, but we will be closing down the Podcasts site on Oct. 31, 2007
It’s underlined to look like a link, but in fact is just styled that way. Some further observations and questions:
- The writing style is out of sync with the rest of the site, clearly done by someone else, likely not a marketing person nor designer
- View-source shows the markup was jammed in there without regard to the CSS/structure on the rest of the site (look for style=”color:#fff;text-decoration:underline;padding:6px;margin:4px;”)
- Is this a case of the original folks who wrote the site having moved on, and the new owners find it easier to shut down?
- Is this a part of “finding focus in hollywood”? (linked earlier)
- Is it a good idea for Yahoo! Podcasts to exist? If there’s even a Y! site for Wii, why not podcasts?
- Is this a case of not being able to automate things down enough?
- Why doesn’t Yahoo! produce any podcasts?
-m
(Note: I wasn’t involved in Y! Podcasts nor in the apparent decision to shut it down)