Yahoo!’s social bookmarking service Delicious has a future again. The original founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, acquire the Delicious service as part of their new web company AVOS.
The move is planned for July 2011. AVOS plans to maintain the Delicious service with all of its functionality. There may be a time of adjustment as AVOS re-launches Delicious, but the company’s intention is to add new features and grow the service overall. “We spoke with numerous parties interested in acquiring the site, and chose Chad and Steve based on their passion and unique vision for Delicious,” said John Matheny, SVP of Communications and Communities at Yahoo!
To continue using Delicious, Yahoo! will transfer your bookmarks to AVOS. “After a transition period and after your bookmarks are transferred, you will be subject to the AVOS terms of service and privacy policy,” says the notification message. Please visit the Delicious move opt-in page to confirm that Yahoo! may transfer your data.
Yahoo! had bought Delicious at the end of 2005. As the company needed to save money, thoughts came up whether to close the service. Yahoo!, Hurley and Chen did not publish any details about the pricing for the takeover. Speculations about businesses possibly interested in buying Delicious said last week that the service is 1-2 million dollars worth. The Youtube founders had sold the video portal to Google in 2006 for some 1.65 billion dollars.