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Pioneering Link-Sharing Site Del.icio.us Shuts Down (thenextweb.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader brentlaminack writes: One of the first and best social bookmarking platforms, Del.icio.us has changed hands about four times, one was to Yahoo for >$15M. Its most recent relaunch was over a year back, which was their last blog entry. Now images are broken, little "advertisement" blocks show up with no advertisements, things seem moribund. What's the deal?
The Next Web reports: It's the end of the road for social bookmarking website del.icio.us. After almost fifteen years, the site has been acquired by rival Pinboard, and will be shuttered on June 15, when it goes into read-only mode. While the site will continue to be viewable, users won't be able to save any new bookmarks. Del.icio.us pioneered the social bookmarking paradigm. Its influence can be seen everywhere, from Reddit to Twitter...

After del.icio.us was acquired by AVOS Systems in 2011, users fled to Pinboard in droves over complaints AVOS was fundamentally changing the makeup of the site. By purchasing del.icio.us, Pinboard is able to coax the few remaining del.icio.us users to jump ship. Depending on how much Pinboard paid for the site, how many users remain, and how many users Pinboard is able to convert, this could be a financially lucrative move. A Pinboard subscription costs $11 per annum.

A late update to the article includes a quote from Pinboard founder Maciej Ceglowski. "In a statement, he said 'I am the greatest.' Ceglowski also confirmed the purchase price for del.icio.us, which was $35,000."

55 comments

  1. I don't believe it by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 1, Funny

    I won't believe it's dying until Netcraft confirms it.

  2. I forgot this existed by Tyrsal · · Score: 1

    Been a while since I've seen it. Just hopped on their homepage to look at it.. Good lord is it uninviting.

    1. Re: I forgot this existed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very surprised it lasted this long. I considered it a dumb idea from the get go. There is no way to monetize something like this without ads or charging and nobody would ever pay for anything like this. You hear that Twitter. You were dead on arrival. You just dont know it yet....

    2. Re: I forgot this existed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very surprised it lasted this long. I considered it a dumb idea from the get go. There is no way to monetize something like this without ads or charging and nobody would ever pay for anything like this.

      Tell that to Pinboard. They've has been in business since 2009, don't run ads and charge users for access. And they're doing pretty well.

      It's a tiny, niche market for sure, but it can work if you do it right -- keep the company small, a bare minimum of employees, no ads, no corporate overlord.

  3. I could never find the site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pressing Del cleared the contents of the url bar for me. And Ctrl+C didn't work either

  4. Poorly defined business model leads to by ProudParanoid · · Score: 1

    Poorly defined business model leads to bankruptcy. Much like how domain name squatters ended up with very little in most cases. Companies simply made up words (Pinterest, Wikipedia, etc.) -- left off a vowel (Tumblr) -- or strung words together (Facebook, YouTube, Craigslist), and saved themselves a king's ransom.

    1. Re: Poorly defined business model leads to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha. That made me chuckle!

    2. Re: Poorly defined business model leads to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it made me blow my load all over this pineapple. Fellow shoppers at Krogers seem to to disgusted and/or impressed.

  5. Good by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Link-sharing sites are the scourge of search results. The worst ones like Pinterest which actually "demand" that you make an account to view their content? They have to shut down.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Isn't there a google search setting to ignore certain sites permanently?

    2. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was. Google retired it over four years ago.

    3. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not permanent, but appending "-site:pinterest.com"(minus sign on the front is key) to a google image search seems to work to exclude those results from that individual search.

    4. Re:Good by denguydj · · Score: 1

      you can just do "-pinterest.com" you don't need the "site:" anymore. you can also put in keywords too so "-pinterest" should also work.

  6. No bookmark export function by presidenteloco · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is supposedly a bookmarks export function in delicious, but

    "We're sorry, but due to heavy load on our database we are no longer able to offer an export function. Our engineers are working on this and we will restore it as soon as possible."

    They've been "working on this" for about 6 months now. In other words the message is BS by unscrupulous site owners.

    --

    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
    1. Re:No bookmark export function by ledow · · Score: 1

      The purchase price wasn't enough to fund one engineer.

      What the hell makes you think they can afford anything in the way of maintenance, while the site is even still on the Internet.

      The lie, if anything, is the word "engineers". Who's paying those people, and what with? Because it sure wasn't the purchase price.

    2. Re:No bookmark export function by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maciej has announced that he intends to get that working again (for exporting to sites other than pinboard).

    3. Re:No bookmark export function by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      Why do you assume they disabled the "make it easy to leave this website" service due to lack of engineering resources?

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    4. Re:No bookmark export function by cyberstealth1024 · · Score: 1

      It's a little awkward, but follow the scraping instructions found here:
      https://ringo.de-smet.name/201...

      Requires you to:
      1) use Chrome
      2) log in to your Delicious account (unless you don't have any private bookmarks)
      3) follow some short instructions
      4) wait
      5) ???
      6) profit.

  7. Tax break! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So $15,000,000 to $35,000 in a few years is a capital loss, right?

    1. Re: Tax break! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You make it sound like they're getting away with something. Losing 15 million is losing 15 million, and thinking people should have to pay income taxes when they lose money is retarded.

    2. Re:Tax break! by MikeDataLink · · Score: 1

      Of course, and rightly so! Why in the world would we tax them for losing money? Wait, why did you even comment. Wait... why I am feeding a troll?

      --
      Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    3. Re:Tax break! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So $15,000,000 to $35,000 in a few years is a capital loss, right?

      Why don't you do us a favor and comment again? Let me help you. Write something like this "I actually have no idea how taxes or finances work. I just like to make dumbass comments."

  8. Dice anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's one of many sites that have sadly suffered the same fate.

    Looking at you Twitch, Slashdot Beta. Let this be a warning, don't piss off your users with stupid UI changes. There's nothing wrong with simplicity.

  9. No good by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    That's Dis.gust.ing

  10. The end of Web 2.0 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Del.icio.us was one of the big "Web 2.0" hype sites, now all we got is websites with ad tracking with adblock killers and the end of net neutrality. Welcome to the Trump web.

  11. Pinboard subscription by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    I'll bet Pinboard makes upwards of $0 per year on subscriptions.

    1. Re:Pinboard subscription by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pinboard makes decent money -- enough to hire and pay developers without running ads.

      It's an excellent service with excellent app support.

    2. Re: Pinboard subscription by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why does anyone need bookmarks when we have sufisticated search engines where results are repeatable?

    3. Re:Pinboard subscription by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A few seconds on google would show you some facts, since he publishes his financial information every year on the pinboard blog (https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/07/pinboard_turns_seven/ ). Last year he made approx $234k, with expenses of $17k, and 24k active users. Frankly, that's doing just fine, from my point of view.

    4. Re: Pinboard subscription by Mr.+Mikey · · Score: 1

      Bookmarks => Curated search results with a user-centric taxonomy

      Admittedly, in our modern post-Information Scarcity era, a quick google search is usually the first step towards answering a question... but if one has a body of knowledge one regularly visits, there is a place for having one's own curated collection, ,and a taxonomy that makes finding things (and seeing the associations between items) quick and easy.

      --
      wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
    5. Re: Pinboard subscription by presidenteloco · · Score: 1

      Search results (for generic terms) are not repeatable. Web content evolves, as do search ranking algorithms, as well as google's knowledge about you.

      So if I find something that is an above average quality reference on something or example of something, I want to preserve a link to that exact resource on the web, not to some average-quality page that's kind of like it.

      --

      Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
  12. Fucking hate Pinterest by future+assassin · · Score: 4, Informative

    the shit spams good image search and 1/2 of the images lead to Pinterest. Its like using search back in the mid 2000's with SEO companies fucking up the search results.

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  13. Good by sunderland56 · · Score: 2

    Fu.cki.ng stu.pid na.me.

  14. Reddit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I still remember when reddit was simply a hole in the wall. Now they are the new fad like myspace, digg, etc. Trust me, in 10 years nobody will know what the fuck you mean when you say "reddit". The site is simply terrible. A pure democratic approach does not work on the Internet, simple as. Sure, the owners will make out with profit no human should have but as a whole, yeah, it's worthless site.

    Slashdot will still be trucking along.

    1. Re:Reddit? by MikeDataLink · · Score: 1

      I still remember when reddit was simply a hole in the wall. Now they are the new fad like myspace, digg, etc. Trust me, in 10 years nobody will know what the fuck you mean when you say "reddit". The site is simply terrible.

      Agreed.

      with profit no human should have but as a whole.

      You don't get to decide what's too little or too much. That's not how this works at all.

      Slashdot will still be trucking along.

      I'm honestly shocked they haven't crashed and burned already.

      --
      Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
  15. "A Pinboard subscription costs $11 per annum." by Black.Shuck · · Score: 1

    This is nonsense. There's no such thing as a "Pinboard subscription". You pay a one-off fee to sign-up.

    However, the more people who sign-up, the higher the sign-up fee gets.

    I think I paid about $5 for mine back in the day and haven't paid a cent since.

    1. Re:"A Pinboard subscription costs $11 per annum." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not anymore. It's a recurring fee now. From their signup page (https://pinboard.in/signup/ )

      Pinboard charges $11 per year for a regular account, or $25 per year for archiving and full-text search

  16. Two questions... by Mr.+Mikey · · Score: 1
    1. 1. Is Pinboard worth the $11 / month?
    2. 2. Which sites, if any, are the modern-day equivalent of del.icio.us - an easy place to store and share one's links with a tagging taxonomy?
    --
    wants to be the first monkey to touch the monolith
    1. Re:Two questions... by Chemtox · · Score: 1

      1. Dunno.
      2. Diigo.
      3. Dung dung dung! (profit!)

    2. Re:Two questions... by MagicM · · Score: 1

      One seems to be Pocket at https://getpocket.com/

  17. Pioneered what again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I must have missed that memo

  18. Who will post this same article about Slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When Slashdot inevitably migrates to the big server farm in the sky, after being passed around a couple more times, who will be the one to report on it?

  19. I will truly miss del.icio.us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Said nobody ever!

  20. Two words. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Face.
    Book.

    Actually maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's all the other, FREE services that exist. Maybe it's too many people going to delicious.com, or people going to de.lic.i.ou.s or whatever, looking for something to eat that tastes good, and instead just found ... bookmarks or links or whatever, and thought, what the hell is all this nonsense?... so they never came back and at the end, no one really especially wanted to use it. Too bad. So sad.

  21. I will give 50,000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Even now.

  22. [VGTG] by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A late update to the article includes a quote from Pinboard founder Maciej Ceglowski. "In a statement, he said 'I am the greatest.'..."

    Blood Eagle victory!

  23. Del.icio.us? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More like Del.et.ed. LOL

  24. Two answers... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. No
    2. Pornhub

  25. Criticize them for behavior, not a name. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Criticize them for behavior, not a name.

    They existed for 15 years successfully... that's more than most.

  26. Good news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    fell.at.io is still up.

    Made you look. Ha ha!

  27. Of bookmen and mice by Chemtox · · Score: 1

    It was all goofing around, in the end, to hope for branching tubes where no Gopher would get lost. Veronica tried to help, poorly, but at least, hey, she was no Archie! Then a Mosaic of possibilities spread wide, and some cowboys tried to rein in all the cattle, Yahooing it in minuscule pens to make every stick count. That is, 'till it was clear no wall was going to dam *that* Netscaping herd, so they rather searched from a box--ExcitedLy'cos the Altavista gave them the Jeeves. But townsfolk are not so easily swayed by quick fads, so they kept fencing around their tiny pastures, trying to figure out the Keywords that would allow multi-dimensional carpeting.

    Explorers came and went, carrying handy books to mark places nobody ever went on purpose. And the robots rediscovered academia: a handful of references are warmer than a Googol of matches. So the box grew referential and exponentially, but still people preferred to Stumble Upon the Wild Wide West, and corraled their most Del.icio.us recipes by hand, helping each other to stack them in the right places--and now their tiny parcel had it's own box!

    It was the heyday of careful web treading, each little sliver of chaos piled up in immense haystacks witch just a pair of pitches from your ball-bearing fork.

    And then, from such unfathomable heights, it all came, predictably, down. What could not be foreseen is not that no one saw it coming, but that no one saw it crash either.

    The war of the box was so brief as the war of the enclosing box so all that what was left was the space in between. Some produced pretty squares that could be plastered everywhere, but as any entrepreneur knows, it's more cost effective to plaster *everyone* in the same space.

    And so the new race became about herding everyone into My one Space, and in such constrained confines every Face and Book started spewing facile trivia and emotional facts, birds barking their every Pinterest and dogs Tweeting whenever they Digged their every hole, the Wide Web made a whirling of urgently unimportant fast food for thought. The Wide Web, but not the World? No. In the center of all of it, watching everything fly to pieces, the box stands, alone, proud of its monolithic certainty.

    But still a few irreductibles tried to remember the golden days of yonder, to break outside the box. And failed to. So the wheel spun once more, and reinvented itself, allowing us to once more XMark the spot of the things we really Diigo, and forEver take Note... until the next spin around...