November 3, 2008 12:48 PM PST

Yahoo Live fails to gain traction, forced to close

After gaining a lot of press initially, Yahoo's experimental live streaming site, Yahoo Live, will be shut down on December 3rd. While it does not appear that the closure of this Yahoo Brickhouse project is directly related to the current economic downturn, belt tightening at Yahoo may have played a role. The leading factor in Yahoo Live's closure was, most likely, its inability to gain a lot of mainstream traction. For example, the top stream on Yahoo Live, at the time of writing, has 58 viewers, while the top stream at Live's competitor, Ustream, has over 8,000. Surely with this sort of stagnant growth, Yahoo was forced to axe the project.

The site will be holding a town hall on Wednesday to, "toast Yahoo! Live."

Harrison Hoffman is a tech enthusiast and co-founder of LiveSide.net, a blog about Windows Live. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

Topics:: Yahoo,; Web video

Tags:: Yahoo Live,; Yahoo,; Lifestreaming

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About The Web Services Report

Harrison Hoffman is a tech enthusiast and co-founder of LiveSide.net, a blog about Windows Live. The Web Services Report covers news, opinions, and analysis on Web-based software from Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and countless other companies in this rapidly expanding space. Hoffman currently attends the University of Miami, where he studies business and computer science.

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He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure

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