Yahoo! will discontinue its underused service for finding and rating audio podcasts on Oct. 31, according to MediaPost.

As the article reports, Yahoo! launched the service two years ago, but it ranks at the bottom of 32 Yahoo-owned properties monitored for use by Hitwise, which reported that the number of August visitors dropped by 20% from the same time last year.

This is the downside of what happens when everyone wants to be a portal for the same content. Eventually customers will flock to a few particular places to get all their media needs. Imagine having to turn on different radios and television sets around the house in order to listen or watch everything you're interested in. It's not as drastic when talking about Web sites, but it's still unnecessarily difficult--which is why when a TV network announces that they're going to create their own portal, just for their own programs, we remain skeptical.

Yahoo To Silence Podcast Service [MediaPost]