In a risky but interesting move that has some at the company nervous and others excited, Yahoo is in the process of moving key development responsibility for its juggernaut Yahoo News unit to Taiwan.

Under the new system, product management, engineering and user interface design for the powerful Yahoo (YHOO) property will become the responsibility of staffers there.

Editorial employees for Yahoo News–which is the No. 1 news site on the Web with 48.4 unique monthly visitors, according to comScore data (SCOR)–will remain in the U.S., largely located at its Santa Monica, Calif., office.

Sources had alerted BoomTown to the change at Yahoo’s flagship content offering this week and many I spoke to about it were deeply worried about further separating key functions in the creation of Yahoo News.

“We are losing more and more of our ability to make quick changes and react to new technologies, which has worked pretty well so far, since we are #1,” said one staffer. “First, we all worked together across a room, then hundreds of miles away and now it is thousands.”

Previously, as was first reported here in February, the distributed and regional method of developing content was shifted to a central global product development organization, with product management, engineering and UI design centered at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ under CTO Ari Balogh.

The argument for the shift posits that centralizing the product development of a Yahoo media offering drives efficiencies, saves money, eliminates redundancies and accelerates growth across the world.

Those who do not like the idea think it is wrong to separate the development of a product from the programming because the two are intricately dependent and need to be tweaked delicately.

In addition, they argue, it makes Yahoo media offerings, which have been largely successful, less unique and more dull.

Well, tough tomatoes, because Yahoo confirmed the transition to me when I inquired about it. It was announced internally several weeks ago.

In an interview I did yesterday afternoon with Jeff Kinder, SVP of media products and solutions, who is spearheading the change, he said it was key that Yahoo News streamline how it makes its products in order to be more innovative and responsive on a global basis.

Before the shift to a global system, he pointed out that Yahoo had 26 different news products worldwide, using nine content management systems.

“This is part of building a global media platform,” said Kinder, who leads development of Yahoo’s anchor media properties, as well as its listings and regional products around the world.

Kinder said the staff in Taiwan was selected to take on Yahoo News because it had been creating top-level news products and was passionate about the arena.

Nonetheless, similar functions for other major Yahoo content categories–Sports, Finance and Entertainment–will remain in the United States.

In addition, he noted, with employees in Taiwan taking over these functions at Yahoo News, it would “free up some of the talent” in Silicon Valley to work on other critical content projects.

Kinder dismissed worries about any logjams in the ability of U.S.-based Yahoo News staffers to make changes to offerings, either for consumers or advertising partners, noting there were weekly calls between the teams and plenty of ways to communicate online.

But those worried about the change said the reason for the move was more to cut costs in the content arena, which–like many parts of Yahoo–has undergone layoffs and expense reductions.

Countered Kinder: “We are all driving to the same goal….This is not about cost savings, but about accelerating change and leveraging a global team.”

Of course, the layoffs at Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) were expected, part of its cost-cutting integration after the $13.25 billion acquisition of Electronic Data Systems.

HP said yesterday that the 24,600 jobs the tech giant axed, or 7.5 percent of the total work force, were made to “streamline the combined company’s services” businesses.

But BoomTown has to wonder if other big tech and Internet companies might not be looking at HP’s move and the current economic mess and wonder if it might be a good time to pare down a bit, after a spate of overhiring.

In fact, the ill winds that will surely be blowing west from Wall Street remind me of the classic lines of noir crime novelist Raymond Chandler:

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks. Anything can happen.”

Indeed, bad times, as one smart exec told me yesterday over lunch, are very good times to clean house.

And, as I wrote yesterday in post called “Dear Web 2.0: It’s Still the Economy, Stupid,” the frightening gyrations of the financial markets will surely impact Silicon Valley, as much as the culture here tries to pretend it will never be affected.

And that’s why I am guessing the sector is going to be seeing some judicious job cuts from managers in the next few months.

Yesterday, for example, our most excellent blogger contributor, Eric Savitz of Barron’s, cited a report by Wedge Parters on the online auction giant eBay. Paraphrasing the Wedge report, he noted “the company’s business is ‘deteriorating’ and that the company is readying layoffs that could affect 10 percent of the company’s 15,000 employees.”

Many think companies like Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) and even Google (GOOG) must start to smartly make cuts–even if they add in other areas–to make sure that they are lean and mean in a less frothy market.

And I am also guessing start-ups, even those flush with investment cash, have to be thinking hard about spending as freely.

While you certainly can’t cut your way into growth, a little prudence is one quality Web 2.0 is probably about to learn.