Tag Archives: social bookmarking

Yahoo Claims They Aren’t Shutting Down Del.icio.us After All

Yahoo put out a new post on the Del.icio.us blog stating that, despite all indications otherwise, they will not be closing down the bookmarking service. They may have fired all of the site’s staff and included it on an internal slide as being “sunset,” but no, apparently the site isn’t being killed. Though they will most likely be selling it.

Is Delicious being shut down? And should I be worried about my data?

– No, 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.

Obviously this is good news. Perhaps we will see something along the lines of Skype’s buyback happen, where the service’s original founders bought the company back from eBay for less than they sold it for. So long as Kevin Rose doesn’t buy it, Delicious should probably be all right. (But I would still recommend backing up your bookmarks, just to be safe.)

Yahoo is Shutting Down Del.icio.us

According to TechCrunch, Yahoo has fired the entire staff of the Delicious social bookmarking service and will be shutting it down shortly. (Along with Altavista and MyBlogLog.) They will also be closing Yahoo Buzz and some of their API services.

Yahoo acquired Del.icio.us back in 2005, and has done little with it. They haven’t run ads on the site or really made any apparent effort to monetize the service. And instead of, I don’t know, selling the service to someone who could make it profitable, they decide to just shut it all down. (Let’s not forget that a meticulously-tagged index of links and their popularity is a wonderful mine of data that advertisers and publishers would love to be able to get metrics from.)

Suffice to say, I am majorly unhappy about this. I have been a Del.icio.us user for years, and have over 2,500 tagged bookmarks stored in the service. Yahoo is suddenly yanking the rug out from under users who have been depending on the service for years. We would gladly put up with ads, or maybe even premium plans. But no, Yahoo is just saying “screw you” to everyone.

Yahoo is dead to me. One by one they are closing the few services that are worth anything. (I assume Flickr and the wonderful BOSS Search API can’t be too far behind?) The services that they are keeping around are things like their vapid content offerings and underwhelming webmail application. They are still stuck in the ’90s, and they are blatantly disregarding the assets that are their most valuable.

Anyway, be sure to export your Delicious bookmarks as soon as possible so you don’t lose them when the site closes. Find an alternative service or simply import them into your web browser’s bookmarking tool.

Update: Yahoo has announced that they will not be shutting Delicious down after all.

Digg 4: It’s Actually Usable Now!

I stopped using Digg a year or two ago because the quality of the links on the front page was rapidly deteriorating. Also, the trollish users were really getting on my nerves.

The new Digg Version 4 changes all of that, and turns the site into a place that’s actually pleasant to use. You get a customized Twitter-style feed of the profiles you “follow,” which is sorted by the number of votes the articles receive. I had been beta testing the site for awhile, but it’s live for everyone now.

The content is better, since you have more control over what you see. And most of the posts I end up seeing have zero comments, which is also nice. :)

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The New StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is transitioning into a new redesign, and changing some things around. The new design is much lighter, and puts the search field in clearer sight.

New StumbleUpon Design

In the post announcing the change, the fourth iteration of the site, they say that their goals are to make things simpler, searchable, and more social. The search has been improved, and now lets you chose to search within your favorites, everyone’s, or your friends’.

It all looks significantly different. The “simpler” part of their mission has certainly been realized. It’s easy to navigate, and there certainly aren’t any unnecessary elements cluttering things up.

The search, too, works as advertised. It’s good at digging-up what you’re looking for, and seems to be heavily weighted towards views/votes.

It will be interesting to see if this drives more people to the main StumbleUpon site instead of just clicking away at their toolbars. I wonder if the iframe toolbar and Su.pr are also partially attempts at doing just that?

BurnURL: Social URL Shortening

BurnURL LogoSince TinyURL made the concept of URL-shortening huge, and since Twitter has made it more important than ever, there have been a lot of sites springing up and offering similar services. There’s the ultra-tiny is.gd, the statistic-centric TweetBurner, and a smattering of other TinyURL clones. Heck, it’s not that hard to roll your own private URL shortener if you have a reasonably short domain. (You could use GoCodes…)

Yet another shortener has sprung up, and this one is a bit different.

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iBegin Share

Social media has really taken off in recent years. Few major blogs don’t have some sort of widget or icon on permalink pages to promote Digging, Stumbling, or whatever. Many blogs go nuts and have 26 different social bookmarking icons in a row beneath posts. Talk about clutter.

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StumbleUpon 2.0: Where is this Going?

Apparently, StumbleUpon will be throwing the switch on some major changes soon, and changing how users interact with the service. The software toolbar will no longer be necessary (they had better keep it though!), some new options for publishers will be introduced, etc.

On Tuesday night StumbleUpon is changing the way users interact with the service, ditching the need for a software-based browser toolbar in place of a small frame that loads on top of the Web site you’re on. Users with the toolbar installed will still be getting the same experience, but the idea is that anyone can begin stumbling without having to install anything.

To get the Web toolbar to show up in the first place, users must now begin their stumbling experience from the StumbleUpon home page. The site is now broken up into categories. Once you’ve clicked on a link the experience begins, with the persistent toolbar following you from site to site and keeping track of your ratings to provide you with new stumbles.

You can read the full article over at CNET: StumbleUpon 2.0: Good-bye, software toolbar.

I have a few concerns about this…

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Design Spotlight: Del.icio.us 2.0

The popular social bookmarking site Del.icio.us redesigned over the past week. Overall they’ve kept a similar look, and haven’t lost any of the simplicity. It’s more polished looking, and probably more usable. Oh, and they’ve dropped the dots from the URL, becoming Delicious.com.

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Yahoo Buzz: Not a “Digg Killer”

Everyone seems to be talking about Yahoo Buzz these days, and about how it’s going to give Digg a run for its money.

I don’t get it.

Sure, the site is new and shiny. But they have nothing on Digg so far.

  • Users of Yahoo Buzz can only vote on stories, they cannot submit them.
  • Only select sites can have their articles featured (read: really big blogs). Yahoo says they are in beta, and are currently not accepting publisher applications.
  • I doubt Yahoo will ever let smaller sites be featured. They’ll most likely keep it weighted towards the bigger sites, with some lame excuse like “all the traffic would kill your site!”

I admit that the potential traffic from Yahoo Buzz is great. As Daily Blog Tips pointed out:

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StumbleUpon: Beyond The “Stumble” Button

There’s more to using StumbleUpon than just clicking the Stumble button and landing on random web pages. How do you think the pages ended up in their index in the first place? Someone had to submit them first.

Don’t just Stumble. Submit pages, review them, tag them. Do more than just channel-surf, contribute to the community.

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