Launched back in 2003, the Delicious web site was a way for users to store and share web bookmarks with others. It was popular among people in the tech industry but never really broke out into the mainstream like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter did. In 2005 Yahoo acquired Delicious. But the company didn't do much to promote or improve the site and in late 2010 Yahoo admitted that it was looking to sell off Delicious. In May 2011, Yahoo did just that. Delicious was acquired for an undisclosed sum to Avos Systems, a company founded by Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, the co-founders of YouTube.
Yahoo operated Delicious until July 2011 but now, as The New York Times reports, the site is in Hurley and Chen's control. Later this year they plan to relaunch Delicious to the public. While the site will continue to let users share their own bookmarks, the new owners will also set up the site to allow users to see bookmarks that are linked to currently trending topics and news items. It will also give users recommendations for even more bookmarks to check out based on the ones they have previously shared.
Hurley and Chen wanted to create a service for their new company that would serve to give web users a way to filter through the wave of new content that many struggle to check out every day. The idea of purchasing Delicious seemed to be a way to fast track such a service. Hurley said, "We know how hard it would be to build a brand. Delicious lets us hit the ground running with its existing footprint." Even today, Delicious has over 500,000 unique visitors a month, according to Comscore.
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