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During the past 2–3 months, Veracity clients have been notified by Yahoo! of various services closing. First it was the auction service, next photos, and now the bill pay service.

It’s understandable why the auction service would close. There’s a 300–lb gorilla in the neighborhood that makes it difficult for anyone to compete in that arena.

Yahoo! Photos, on the other hand, is a mystery – even with the acquisition of Flickr. The Photo’s site was reported to have over 2 billion stored photos – compared with the 500 million at Flickr.

We’ve asked about the bill pay service. Yahoo hasn’t responded to our inquiries.

Alycia de Mesa has a great article on brandchannel.com about two brands joining via merger and/or acquisition. As she points out, customers are often overlooked in favor of the balance sheet. Is the Flickr brand more valuable than the flagship Yahoo! brand?

What is the message Yahoo! wants its customers to hear?