It’s been revealed that Yahoo is doing away with ‘Delicious’ the social bookmarking tool. However, there seems to be doubts about whether the service will be picked up by another company or killed off in its entirety. The Delicious blog has published a post which suggests it will live on in some form:
“…We are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive.”
Mysteriously, this post has disappeared and then reappeared since it was first published, suggesting even they don’t really know what’s going to happen.
If Delicious was to disappear, it would be a real pain for those who have saved their favourite places and bookmarks on it. Delicious is particular popular with journalists who use the service to organise their research, and freelancers who like to share their favourite online resources. It’s a very useful way for like-minded people to share useful websites and articles across different computers.
Some commentators believe that we should never take for granted the free online services currently on the marketplace. An interesting editorial by Guy Clapperton on Daily Finance, makes a concerning prediction:
“This is, I’d predict, the first but not the last of these cases. Anyone who uses Google Docs… as their main office automation programme at work is risking their livelihood on Google’s generosity.” He adds: “Delicious might just be the last free service to be withdrawn, but I doubt it.”
According to this logic, even the existence of Twitter and Facebook isn’t entirely secure. If that’s true, then having a back plan might just be advisable if your business is particularly reliant on one such service. Personally, I think any service that’s wildly popular will most likely be replaced by something similar should it come a cropper – and there are already similar ones currently co-existing on the market.
If this is the end of Delicious, perhaps we should start looking at alternative social bookmarking solutions. Expect a review of the alternatives to Delicious shortly – in the meantime, feel free to leave your own suggestions below.
