CALIFORNIA: The churn at Yahoo's top level continues, with the husband and wife team behind Yahoo Inc's popular photo-sharing service Flickr too announcing their resignation. Their resignation follows several other top executives who have departed since the Internet pioneer rejected a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.

Earlier this week, Yahoo's EVP, Network Division, Jeff Weiner, submitted his resignation. The two other executives to leave are Usama Fayyad, chief data officer and executive vice president of research and strategic data solutions. Another Yahoo veteran Jeremy Zawodny too has reportedly announced on his blog that he is also leaving Yahoo.

Last month, the longtime director of Yahoo's board, Edward Kozel, too had resigned citing personal reasons. Kozel been with company October 2000.

Flickr co-founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake want to pursue another opportunity that they haven't yet revealed, Yahoo spokeswoman Terrell Karlsten said.

Fake's last day at Sunnyvale-based Yahoo was June 13. Butterfield plans to leave July 12.

The couple sold Flickr to Yahoo for a reported $35 million in 2005, about a year after they created the website for showing off digital photography.

Flickr's system for displaying and sharing photos attracted such a loyal following that Time magazine included Butterfield and Fake on a 2006 list of the world's most influential people.

Flickr already had been weaning itself from its co-founders. Fake had been working in another Yahoo division that cultivates new technology and Butterfield took an extended paternity leave last year.

Kakul Srivastava, who became Flickr's general manager in April, will continue to oversee the photo-sharing service, Karlsten said.

The Flickr defections follow the resignations of two Yahoo executive vice presidents, Jeff Weiner and Usama Fayyad.

Weiner oversaw an array of services that included Yahoo's search engine and email. He left to become an "executive in residence" at two venture capital firms, Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.

Fayyad had been in charge of Yahoo's analysis of user data -- a job aimed at identifying online ads more likely to pique a reader's interest.

Yahoo attributed all the departures to personal decisions unrelated to the outcome of the company's five-month battle with Microsoft. The software maker withdrew a $33 per share offer on May 3 after Yahoo sought $37 per share -- a price that the company's stock hasn't reached since January 2006.

Yahoo shares fell 34 cents, or 1.5 per cent, to finish Wednesday at $22.91.

Had a Microsoft deal been reached, all of Yahoo's 13,800 employees would have been covered by a generous severance plan that would have paid them if they were fired or quit after being reassigned to a new job within two years of a takeover.