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Yahoo's innovation factory, headed by avid conference attendee Salim Ismail and the voluble Bradley Horowitz, has launched another dud, we hear. Kickstart, the recruiting network launched to lavish praise from the likes of Michael Arrington, has attracted vanishingly few users. Stanford's alumni association looks set to win a $25,000 prize for signing up a mere 305 users. At $82 a user, that competes with Famesource's Indian recruitment efforts for ineffective marketing.

Give Yahoo management this much credit: They're on the verge of shutting it down. Already, marketing dollars earmarked for the project have been cut. Scott Gatz, the executive in charge of it, has left. And the team who built it? They're sending their resumes around. One presumes they're not using Kickstart, with its scant connections, for networking.