Yahoo Brickhouse, the two year old San Francisco based Yahoo business unit to foster new product development, is to be shut down by the end of the year, says a sourceThe announcement may be as early as Wednesday.

The unit has managed to launch some quality (or at least thought provoking) applications like Pipes, FireEagle, Live (deadpooled) and BravoNation But Brickhouse has also had a revolving door at the top (mirroring the general executive exodus from Yahoo).

The group was originally led by Salim Ismail and Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake - neither remain at YahooNext up was Chad Dickerson, who left to join Etsy in June 2008The current lead is former Jumpcut CEO Mike Folgner..