During the last few days I’ve been asked by several people what I think about the scary bit of news regarding the shutdown of Delicious. I’ve replied individually several times, but I feel that a blog post is in order. So here it goes.
First of all, Delicious is not being shutdown. Here is a quote from their blog:
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.
Secondly, if you are worried about your data, just make a backup of it. Delicious had an export option for years. Login to your account and you’ll be able to export your bookmarks from the Settings page.
Thirdly, I can understand that news like that could throw some people into a search for alternative mode. And here are alternatives of them out there. I haven’t tried any of them in years, since I’m a happy Delicious user. But if I were forced to choose one day, Xmarks would be my first choice. My reasons are:
- All features that are vital for me are a part of the free subscription. More features are available for premium subscribers.
- Cross-browser support that covers all browsers that I care about.
- Support for sharing of bookmarks. That’s the main reason for me to actually use a social bookmarking service instead of a much simpler bookmark synchronization service.
- Support for private bookmarks. I want to share as much as possible, but not everything.
- Easy integration with third-party tools and services. For example, using an RSS feed.
- Support for direct import from Delicious.
But with all that said, I want to stress it once again – Delicious is not shutting down. So if you use and enjoy the service, simply continue doing just that. No need to worry.