I’ve been a long time Delicious user for bookmarks, going back to way before the acquisition of the company by Yahoo in late 2005 (one of our early scoops). But over the years I’ve used it less and less. It’s slow, sometimes offline. A couple of weeks ago it wouldn’t let me log in, saying my password was incorrect. I was sure it was right, but I requested a password reset anyway. The email never came.
The service has languished, and has the feel of a product that’s on life support. There doesn’t seem to be a passionate group of developers loving and caring for the product and making it better over time. Or at least not worse. Traffic is stagnating or dropping, depending on which analytics service you look at. Founder Joshua Schachter left long ago in frustration, and is now at Google.
All Delicious really needs to do is let me bookmark sites without a lot of distraction. It hasn’t been good at that for a long, long while.
Something about a new service called Pinboard is really captivating to me. It’s not even a startup – it’s a side project by a developer, Maciej Ceglowski. Ceglowski is a former Yahoo Brickhouse engineer and has also designed and built an internal data warehouse for Twitter as an independent contractor.
The service, which is in private beta, doesn’t have many bells and whistles. Which is exactly what I want. Bookmarklets let me set bookmarks via a popup or redirect, with fields for tags and description and a privacy toggle. You can also bookmark a page “to read” which populates a separate list. It’s not for permanent bookmarks, just a reminder to read something later.
No graphics. no design. just easy, easy bookmarking and tagging. I love it. It reminds me of Delicious back in 2005, when I loved that site, too.
Very cool. Functional beats presentation every time IMO. If this project doesn’t get tossed aside, it’d be great seeing a creative mind run with it.
This is pretty similar to Instapaper I feel. I’ve been using Instapaper for a while, I like the simple nature of these types of services.
But Instapaper doesn’t have tags, which makes it quite different, IMHO.
I like this quip in the feature roadmap:
“Get acquired by Yahoo and slowly grow useless”
hah. yeah, i meant to add that to the post.
Evernote has been my app for note-taking, bookmarking, and more. IMO, nothing has topped it yet.
Seem like Yahoo made a big mistake in shutting down or shrinking Brickhouse.
Believing Yahoo is like believing in the Knicks when Isiah Thomas was running the show… the problem will all these book marks is you have to know some code to integrate them.. same with tweetme.. why doesn’t some brainiack tech guy who isn’t code phobe like me make a stupid simple way to add it to each blogger post at the bottom of each post..why does not google do this…there are lots of good blogs that nobody knows about because these so called giants of the blogs can create a simple drag the buzz up the tweet me.. the digg the stumbleupon buttons into a single line and say put after every blog post.. it is so annoying and such a marketable feature.. it makes me want to scream.. and then my dogs bark and then my mom gets mad at me..
Don’t tell me I created a fb app I should be able to do this.. do you know how frustrating it is trying to explain something as simple as twitter to some guy in India.. don’t say get local engineers..$10000, a disc of unfinished code, 4 months behind the agreed upon release date was what I got when I went local because the company I hired decided to build his own company..
Nothing in life has ever confused me more than reading your 2 comments.
$10,000 and they worked more than 4 months? Try hiring someone competent enough to charge a real fee.
Do you know cubics.com.. see I don’t blame the guy.. he had to do what was right for him and his family and cubics was a brilliant idea.. just often success is.. well you know.. it was just frustrating as heck.. but the truth was working with engineers on this side of the world has been a largely negative experience because they treat people without degrees like scum.. it is the flaw in every north american web design company I ever looked at..bad legal contracts.. inability to explain the process or the technologies.. working with india is sometimes hell but they always treated me with respect…Only one engineer out of the many I have met here treated me as an equal.. and that was Richard Tortora the CTO of dexrex.com who I was lucky enough to sit next to on a plane… don’t sit there on your high horse mr Silveira… so when you complain people out source look in the mirror and maybe realize there are a bunch of guys out there like me who would of gladly invested in a local company had you just checked your ego at the door..
Nowdays I use Twitter and my nlog to bookmark certain things
What’s wrong with Delicious and how is Pinboard better? The ’simplicity’ of Pinboard? Delicious seems pretty damn simple to me. Adding a bookmark is just a plus button away in Firefox with all the auto-complete tagging goodness.
In fact, I think it’s too simple. I stopped using Delicious back in 2005 because of its lack of features (aka bells and whistles). Once you get past a certain number of bookmarks, Delicious became unsable. This was before tag clusters and other useful ways to organise and search your bookmarks.
I like this, thanks for posting.
Agreed. I have been using delicious for a long time and run into the same issues.
I never understood why a great opportunity was dropped by Yahoo on delicious. There are so many pain factors around bookmarks and no one really goes ofter it the right way. Now I am curious to see Pinboard .
Strange. I think del.icio.us “got” bookmarks correctly, at least for me, and it still works, even for large number of bookmarks (with proper tagging).
Another thing is that none of their “improvements” were useful. They did nothing to make it really better. Let’s see what Pinboard will offer.
nice, I will try it.
In 3.5 years, Yahoo still hasn’t enabled Yahoo logins for Delicious. That alone suggests a lack of commitment to the service.
That is a good thing… when I go to flickr it hurts to get a yahoo account.. I feel as if the stench will not wipe off… I am like Jim Carey in Ace Ventura in the bathtube trying to clean myself… ahh.. need to go shower.. why do you bring up such horrid thoughts.. why?
I wish yahoo would drop their bloody ids for all of their other services.
Why the hell should I have to have a yahoo e-mail address to use Flickr? I already have several e-mail addresses, and now I have to remember logins for yahoo as well?
The screen capture you posted is almost identical to what I see when I bookmark using Delicious. I’ll trust your statements that traffic is stagnant and the service has been intermittent. Delicious, however, has worked flawlessly for me.
If there are bells and whistles, I don’t use them. I bookmark easily in FF and can locate my bookmarks just as easily when I need them. I am not looking for more; it works as I desire.
I am a heavy Delicious user, but now I am using it less. The problem is, it is usually quicker to find something by Google than to dig in Delicious. Its search is a joke.
If you know the right tag then Delicious is better option.
hah..good .I like this.
Did you try Faviki – a bookmarking site using Wikipedia concepts as tags?
Seems to be a very thin argument to switch from Delicious. I’m not convinced.
To be honest, this looks pretty damn similar to Google Bookmarks. Then again, Google Bookmarks is a service that is neglected by most folks because it is so simple.
I have used Delicious for a while and never once come across any of the issues you mention. Guess I’ve been lucky. Or maybe it somehow works better for me cuz I use it via the Delicious Firefox add-on? Regardless, good to know Pinboard is out there in case I ever do have problems with Delicious.
Ditto on that. I haven’t had any problems with delicious in terms of service, and with the firefox add-on the functionality becomes invisible until I need it. I’m constantly evangelizing to others about how much I love it.
I like simple. But I also like simple and different. There is really nothing different in Pinboard.in
I am not exactly shy about bashing Yahoo when they fuck up, but I use Delicious and its site and its search is much faster then it used to be a few years back. The facts should guide the conversation.
I feel like this blog keeps trying to call time on Delicious, always prematurely. Remember when we were all going to switch to BlueDot?
I use Delicious on a regular basis and have never had any problem. It’s still the best bookmarking service there is and I have ‘never’ experienced slow search since they did their site redesign.
Can we see how Delicious traffic stacks up against other social bookmarking sites?
check out diigo, i find it incredibly powerful and simple
Not sure why is there a need to bring down one product to announce and review another but I’ve been using delicious via their bookmarklet (not via any add-on, just a plain and simple bookmarklet) and it works fine without any issues. Bookmarking is quick and searching via tags is easy.
Save Bookmarks Form:
Delicious = 4 fields
Pinboard.in = 4 fields
Delicious also has suggested tags to reduce the amount of typing you need to do.
How this translates into a complex service is hard for me to grasp.
Looks cool ..i am trying it now ..very good
I still use Delicious, but yes, less and less. They really haven’t done anything to improve it over the years. Like, improvements to bulk editing tags and bundles would be nice.
I use diigo and have it automatically copy bookmarks to delicious. works great for me!
I still rely heavily on delicious… god, I hope they offer an export if they close the thing down.
You can export your Delicious bookmarks at any time: http://deliciou...ookmarks/export
I’ll check out Pinboard, but I agree with arif, there’s no need to tread down on Delicious. It’s a great service that’s served me very well.
BTW – I love how you happened to have technical issues with the Yahoo! run Delicious product about the time a new service from an ex-yahoo popped up. Sometimes its like these posts almost write themselves isn’t it…
I use this: http://delicioussafari.com/
I’m also suspect of reviews that have to tear down a competing app to make their case. If they’re good, they should be able to stand on their own merits. I too have used delicious for years and I’ve yet to encounter any of the issues mentioned in this article, much less any deterioration in availability or service levels. Delicious works great, has a simple interface and the rss feed works well for sharing new posts instantly to several other blogs and social networking services. “Methinks thou dost protest too much….
Here’s another vote for Google Bookmarks. Reliable, minimalistic (but sufficient) in its features, and freaking easy to use.
I use the delicoious firefox plugin and i love it. i can search my bookmarks right from my browser. Thats also the main reason why their traffic is dropping. no need to visit the actual site anymore..
Here here, a person who actually realized that it’s the add-on which makes the service a joy to use, and presents the very same type of dialog as shown in this article. Does the author even know there is an add-on???
I suspect this is another case of a lot of people commenting on something, including the author, that they are not even informed on. Here is a screenshot of bookmarking this article with Delicious directly from FF or IE, make sure to check it out!
http://picasawe...667115602618898
Gee, that looks a lot different than the “less complicated tool” shown in this article, doesn’t it?!
For those who would like to deal in facts instead of fantasy, go to Delicious and find the full add-ons for FF and IE and you will experience how Delicious actually works as opposed to how someone who hasn’t used it in years thinks it works.
This article raises some excellent points. A bookmarking site should be simple and easy to use. Unfortunately, Delicious didn’t originally have the privacy options I wanted, so in 2005 I created Linkatopia.com. I wanted to make some links public, some private, and some only available to people in my “friends list”. I also wanted private tags! I currently use Linkatopia almost every day and have over 1600 links. It’s fast, always works, and when people suggest good ideas for new features, I usually add them (as long as it keeps the site simple and responsive). I use it from my (non iphone) phone. I even have a “skin” you can select that mimics the original Delicious look. Here’s my own page- http://linkatopia.com/rob215
The only problem we’ve had recently is the complete bombardment with spam accounts. I had to temporarily turn off new account signups until I build better filters. Existing members still have full access.
Michael, I’d love to set up an account for you and have you try it out. I really believe I’ve kept things simple while incorporating some key features I felt were important for this type of application.
Hey Rob! It’s about time you jumped in here to plug your service!
Linkatopia has been flying under the bookmark radar for far too long. In addition to setting up an account for Michael (and techcrunch staff?), maybe you could open registration for all techcrunch readers – say with a special sign-up code?
Check out Linktopia. I know Rob’s put a lot of work and thought into the service over the last few years – much in the same way he did with PulpChat.com, a DHTML type chat service, you could embed in your website online, long before Meebo.
I don’t understand why diigo hasn’t gained widespread adoption yet. It is dead simple to use with their bookmarklet (or firefox extension) and it’s got a ton a features for those so inclined to figure them out.
Diigo also has “save elsewhere” which I use to automatically save my diigo bookmarks to delicious.
It appears that they’ve adopted a niche strategy and are now targeting education workers.
Simpy, created right around del.icio.us time is still alive, up and running – http://simpy.com/
I think you’ll find its search working much better than del.icio.us’.
If it can’t suck in my current delicious bookmarks, then its useless to me.
Looks like Delicious (when used with the FF add-on), minus the branding and tag selectors – so not much difference there. The “Read later” option looks tempting though, it’s something I would use often. I signed up for a beta account, but obviously wasn’t antisocial enough to be sent a welcome email…
For the video addicts there is http://www.myvidster.com/ for video bookmarking. Simple/easy interface, bookmark your videos with their firefox addon or bookmarklet, you can backup your videos to their servers, tag, search, etc.
Looks a lot like the PhoneFavs service without the mobile action.
http://phonefavs.com/
Michael, I will not agree with you about Delicious, at least my experience is totally different from yours.
Deliciuos have never let me down. I use it every day for my bookmarks (for years) – have never experienced the site to be slow or missing (down). it works perfectly for me and it has a lot of features.
You are right that Delicious is not supported with new features, but let me tell it this way – I do not need any new features. If Delicious continues to do what it does, it is a great service and a very useful tool (proven and reliable).
Update:
I just received this email after signing up for beta. Interesting in this month’s discussion of “Free”
——
Hello,
You’re receiving this letter because you recently signed up to help beta
test Pinboard.
While we have enough testers for the time being, the site is now also open to
regular users. If you’d like to create an account, please visit the following
URL:
http://pinboard...one.org/signup/
You’ll need to pay a small signup fee (around three dollars) through Amazon to
create the account. This money goes towards the costs of running the site,
and the fee helps to discourage spammers.
As I make more features available, I’ll announce them on the Google group
(http://groups.g...up/pinboard-dev) and the site blog
(http://pinboard.in/blog/).
You can also find me on IRC: irc.freenode.net #pinboard
If you find bugs while using the site, please send me an email and I’ll try
to fix them as quickly as I can.
For things that are not bugs (feature requests, critique, suggestions, questions) please post to the Google group so that everyone can pile on.
Thanks again for joining me on this project, and happy bookmarking!
Maciej Ceglowski
—–
A “why” link on the signup page says:
“The signup fee helps discourage spammers and defrays some of the costs of running the site.
The fee is based on the formula (number of users * $0.0001), so the earlier you join, the less you pay.”
“There doesn’t seem to be a passionate group of developers loving and caring for the product and making it better over time. ”
This isn’t quite true. The Delicious team worked countless weekends to release Delicious 2.0. After the launch of Delicious, Yahoo had been plagued by layoffs, each having negative effects on the Delicious team including the need to pick up any slack. The Delicious engineering team has continually been committed to their product.
The real issue is Delicious engineers are not calling the shots on their product. I was there, I tried and struggled, but at the end of the day, we were not the decision makers – new features took precedence over reliability/stability even innovation. The people who were very innovative were the people who worked around the clock, nights and weekends – on code and designs which may never see the light of day.
Hopefully as Yahoo gets its act together it will realize that Delicious is a powerful tool and could be very instrumental in its “open” strategy.
I think you were on a different team than I was, or perhaps in a parallel universe.
Vast engineering delays (and vastly stupid engineering decisions) sank the product.
It’s definitely snappy. But I’m missing something. How do you search your bookmarks?
Search is now turned on site-wide
@joshu – yes, but those people who made stupid engineering decisions left their mess in the hands of the team I was in. Most of them weren’t even there when I had joined.
I’d love to get a hold of an API for this to hook up my Delicious app, Pukka. That’d fix the search issue.
What can I do with Twitter?