There are a lot of strange and funny things on the Web, but as of this week, there’s one less place that showcases them; Yahoo Picks has been shut down.

For 12 years, Yahoo Picks provided an interesting link per day, with recent highlights including Starship Dimensions and Japander.com.  But Yahoo’s Molly McCall has now stated, “We’re sorry to say that Picks has stopped updating. . . .  [W]e’re moving on to new projects and fresh ways of highlighting cool sites across the Web.”

The reaction that this announcement caused is somewhat rare.  People like Danny Sullivan, Jack Schofield, and Jason Calacanis have all, in one way or another, called the passing of Yahoo Picks “sad.”  The majority of 89 sentiments following McCall’s post echo that feeling.

Yahoo’s trying not to totally abandon these fans; McCall later continued, “We’ll still be here in different guises, like on Yahoo! Green writing about eco-friendly sites, or Yahoo! Answers calling out cool questions, or on the Yahoo! Buzz Log, sifting through what people are searching for online.  And the Yahoo! Picks archive will remain available to anyone who wants to wander in.”

Many people seem to have lost their sole reason to support Yahoo, however, so whatever traffic- or finance-related reasons are behind this development, it doesn’t appear to have been the best PR move.