Yahoo’s new CEO Scott Thompson is doing some early spring cleaning, reducing the number of mobile apps that are hardly gaining traction. The announcement comes in a blog post Friday afternoon and includes the following apps: Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone); Yahoo! Mim (iPad); Yahoo! Answers (Android); Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone); Yahoo! Deals (iPhone); Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry); Yahoo! Movies (Android); Yahoo! News (Android); Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone) and Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone).

The catalog includes some of Yahoo’s popular brands and services that were not being embraced by consumers enough to continue in the mobile sector. Yahoo said the app reduction is part of its effort “to continuously measure and scrutinize what’s working and what isn’t” as part of their “mobile first” strategy. Here is what Paid Content thinks about Yahoo’s decision:

“This latest move seems like a particularly damning admission in the case of popular online brands such as Yahoo’s news and finance portals: it is yet another demonstration that Yahoo has failed to find mobile traction with consumers in some more obvious areas.”

For the meantime, Yahoo offers temporary support for other apps, such as News and Finance on iOS, Sports, Mail, Messenger and Flickr.  They are also pushing two new apps that were launched last year: Into Now, a check-in for TV and other entertainment viewing, and Livestand, a Flipboard-like aggregated magazine. While Yahoo said they will faze out some of their apps, the technology behind them is not in vain, as they make their way into the new apps Yahoo plans to continue to offer.

Thompson continues to believe in Yahoo’s culture of innovation–mentioning this during a conference call after taking his new position, and last week during his first quarterly earnings call– as he strengthens the company’s audience-base, expediency and standing. Yahoo said they are making space to be able to implement new ideas in mobile products that they intend to release this year.

While the move makes sense, there’s so much to do in convincing users in the sea of competing apps. Still, watching a former titan claw back to its former glory is a must-see. But in the end, we can only wonder if their strategy will take off.

Yahoo is not the only company who has troubles in winning consumer preference. Even an enterprise as powerful such as Google had to shutdown offerings every now and then as they fail to gain traction. The most recent app decommissioned by the search giant is Picnik.