When news first hit that Yahoo would be seriously restricting its various Web properties, users were horrified to hear that popular bookmarking site Delicious was on the chopping block. And even after Yahoo tried to calm dedicated users by talking up a sale for the service, the serious lack of buyers was cause for more concern. One former Delicious employee pointed out the site had been restructured to integrate with Yahoo’s platform, and that it could be a challenge for potential buyers.
But Delicious’ sale saga has come to an end. YouTube founders and early PayPal staffers Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have acquired the site (the price was not disclosed) and the transition will be complete by July. Hurley and Chen are currently running AVOS, which only describes itself as “a new Internet company,” and according to both the new owners and Delicious, the bookmarking application has ended up in the right hands.
“As creators of the largest online video platform, they have firsthand experience enabling mission so users to share their experiences with the world. They are committed to running and improving Delicious going forward.” According to the WSJ, Delicious’ blog post previously read “We wanted to find a home for the product where it can receive more love and attention,” but the Yahoo slight has since been removed.
So how exactly will the move affect users? According to AVOS, it will remain a bookmarking site and after you agree to the new owners’ terms of service, confirm your e-mail and password, you’re all set. It will apparently get better: AVOS will work to improve the site to make it “even easier and more fun to save, share, and discover the web’s ‘tastiest’ content.”
It’s a happy ending for the fiercely loved site, but it might be coming a bit too late. Since December, when it was first announced Delicious and Yahoo would be parting ways, many users have jumped ship and found other bookmaking sites, motivated largely by fear of losing all their web placeholders. So it’s possible there may be more than an ownership transition for Delicious – we wouldn’t be surprised to see it turn into, or feature some sort of news aggregation service. The quip “take on the challenge of building the best information discovery service on the web” from Hurley and Chen’s press release definitely makes it sound like it could in that direction. As for other changes, AVOS wants user to know a Firefox 4 plug-in is in Delicious’ near future.
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