Yahoo buys social bookmarking firm Del.icio.us

IDG News Service - Yahoo Inc. has acquired Del.icio.us, a New York-based start-up considered to be a pioneer in social bookmarking, a type of online service that lets users save, annotate and tag links to their favorite Web pages and share their lists with other users.

Both Yahoo and Del.icio.us separately announced the deal yesterday via postings on official blogs. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Together we'll continue to improve how people discover, remember and share on the Internet, with a big emphasis on the power of community," Del.icio.us founder and CEO Joshua Schachter wrote in his company's blog.

In the official blog from the search engine unit at Yahoo, Jeremy Zawodny wrote that the Del.icio.us team will be working "in close proximity" to Flickr, a photo-sharing service that Yahoo bought in March.

"Just like we've done with Flickr, we plan to give del.icio.us the resources, support, and room it needs to continue growing the service and community," Zawodny wrote.

Flickr works in a very similar way to Del.icio.us by letting users not only create online photo albums but also tag and share their pictures with other users.

Zawodny also alluded to a likely collaboration of Schachter's group with the Yahoo team developing My Web, a service now in beta and conceptually identical to Del.icio.us.

Flickr and Del.icio.us are considered good examples of what some call the Web 2.0 era of Internet services. Web 2.0 is a much-debated term used to describe Internet companies born after the dot-com bust of 2000 and 2001.

Web 2.0 companies are said to share some key principles, such as their emphasis on making end users a central part of their services and giving them the ability to contribute and participate in the creation, sharing and management of content. These companies also tend to be big believers in open platforms that allow and foster development of Web services that build on top of existing applications and Web sites run by third parties.

In an interview, Schachter said he's convinced that Del.icio.us will thrive as a result of the acquisition, because Yahoo truly comprehends the concept of social bookmarking.

"It just made sense in terms of vision, direction, technology, you name it. It's a good fit in every dimension," Schachter said.

Del.icio.us currently has nine employees. Some work in the company's main office in New York and others elsewhere. Schachter said that he will move to California but that the New York staffers will remain there.

"We'll continue to grow and build the product I always wanted

Reprinted with permission from

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