On April 27, Yahoo.com, the previous owners of social bookmarking site, Delicious.com (Del.icio.us), announced that the site now has new owners:
They are Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the founders of YouTube, who sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion in 2006.
Delicious will become part of Chad and Steve's company - Avos, a 5-year-old Internet startup based in San Mateo, California, that claims it will help people navigate the torrent of information cascading from Internet services.
Yahoo, in an email to Delicious users, introduced the two entrepreneurs, whilst requesting that users transfer their bookmarks from the old Delicious platform to a new Avos platform, in a just a few clicks.
While some of my colleagues have been expressing apprehension re the new ownership...I welcome it.
Why?
Unfortunately Delicious has become "another" social bookmarking site - in a sea of "me too" social bookmarking sites that offer the same or similar features.
Very few have really tried to differentiate themselves to serve us as clients...who not only want to use the social bookmarking site to socialize, receive and/or report on local and world news as it happens, but who want to use it for its main purpose - social bookmarking for quality backlinks!
Later this week, I will inform you of one social bookmarking site that's doing just that and a lot more to differentiate itself from its peers:
This social bookmarking pioneer is Blog Engage.
I'll tell you what Blog Engage is doing differently and why I think they represent the new face of social bookmarking.
Please stay tuned for this!
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So, back to our original story...will things be different for Delicious, under new ownership?
I surely hope so...
Chad and Steve breathed life in social networking by allowing ordinary people like you and me to share personal videos with the world, whilst creating a new space for independent filmmakers to get noticed and hence, funded.
Hopefully, their bravado, ingenuity and smart business sense can be engaged to help Delicious be what it used to be before its copycats emerged and took over its market share - truly delicious to users - with fresh, new ideas to help us improve our page rank!
Their failure to do this, will unfortunately result in Delicious becoming overwhelmed by too much similarity with its peers, thus ensuring its quick descent into social bookmarking oblivion!
Gillian
Sources Include
1) Article, "Youtube founders set for 'Delicious' next act", the Associated Press via TriValleyCentral.com, May 2,2011
2) Article, "Delicious finds a new owner in YouTube founders", by Brad McCarty, The NextWeb.com, April 27,2011
3) Article, "Delicious Has New Owners: YouTube Founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen", by Audrey Watters, The ReadWriteWeb.com, April 27,2011
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