Yahoo may kill 50 products

Yahoo is dumping products along with workers in a quest to return the faded internet star to glory. 

Yahoo boss Scott Thompson announced the move while mapping out the company's turnaround on the heels of an unusually upbeat quarter in which profit climbed 28 per cent. 

It was the first time since 2008 that Yahoo saw revenue rise in a year-over-year comparison of financial quarters. 

"Yahoo has been doing way too much for way too long and was only doing a few things really well," Thompson said during an earnings call. 

"We need to be clearer going forward about what we won't do." 

Yahoo will shut down or consolidate 50 products that don't "contribute meaningfully" to revenue, according to the chief executive. 

The company will focus on online venues such as News, Finance, Sports, and Yahoo Mail that attract the most users and advertisers. 

Yahoo reported net income of $286 million on revenue just shy of $1.08 billion in the first three months of this year. 

Yahoo shares jumped more than two percent on the news, hitting $15.44 a share in after-market trade. 

"In the first quarter, Yahoo's results... beat consensus on revenue and profits," Thompson said. 

"We also made changes to resize the organization and establish a new leadership structure to quickly deliver the best user and advertiser experiences at scale." 

Yahoo this month said it would slash some 2,000 jobs in a purge aimed at transforming into a "smaller, nimbler, more profitable" company. 

The 17-year-old company based in Sunnyvale, California, had more than 14,000 employees at the end of 2011. 

Thompson who took the helm in January promising to turn the company around after a year of falling income. 

"We had way too many people for the amount of output for this business," Thompson said. "A streamlined Yahoo will help us get things done at the pace required. 

Yahoo has been trying to reinvent itself as a "premier digital media" company since the once-flowering internet search service found itself withering in Google's shadow. 

As the company strived for a new identity it saw an exodus of talent that commenced during a failed bid by technology giant Microsoft to buy Yahoo four years ago for about $45 billion. 

Yahoo hasn't seen search ad revenue results envisioned when it subsequently struck a deal to have Microsoft power queries at its websites.