Wow, what a bold move.
I hope it pays off for them, although the delicious trend is definitely starting to diminish.
YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have acquired Yahoo’s Delicious for an undisclosed sum.
According to a statement, Hurley and Chen will keep the service running and make the site easier to use. Delicious will become part of AVOS, a new company.
The acquisition gets Yahoo out of a bit of a pickle. The company didn’t want Delicious, but also didn’t want to alienate a vibrant community of folks who support the site.
As for Delicious’ future, Hurley and Chen will “work closely with the community over the next few months to develop innovative features to help solve the problem of information overload.”
Anything that will help with information overload will be greatly appreciated. Let’s see if Hurley and Chen can revitalize Delicious and grow it.
Here’s the statement:
YOUTUBE FOUNDERS ACQUIRE DELICIOUS FROM YAHOO!
Promise Users the Same Great Service And Even Easier & More Fun Ways To Save, Share, and Discover the Web’s “Tastiest” Content.
San Francisco, CA. – April 26, 2011 – Delicious.com, the leading social bookmarking service, has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. As creators of the largest online video platform, they have firsthand experience enabling millions of users to share their experiences with the world. Their vision for Delicious is to continue to provide the same great service users love and to make the site even easier and more fun to save, share, and discover the web’s “tastiest” content. Delicious will become part of AVOS, a new Internet company.
“We’re excited to work with this fantastic community and take Delicious to the next level,” said Chad Hurley, CEO of AVOS. “We see a tremendous opportunity to simplify the way users save and share content they discover anywhere on the web.”
“We spoke with numerous parties interested in acquiring the site, and chose Chad and Steve based on their passion and unique vision for Delicious,” said John Matheny, SVP of Communications and Communities at Yahoo!.
The YouTube founders plan to work closely with the community over the next few months to develop innovative features to help solve the problem of information overload. “We see this problem not just in the world of video, but also cutting across every information-intensive media type,” said Chen.
Going back to their roots, Hurley and Chen located Delicious in downtown San Mateo, California, blocks away from where they started YouTube. They’re aggressively hiring to build a world-class team to take on the challenge of building the best information discovery service on the web.
About Delicious
Delicious is the leading social bookmarking service for saving, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. Started in 2003 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005, Delicious has built a passionate, worldwide community of millions of users. In 2011, Delicious was acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Previously, they co-founded YouTube, the world’s largest video site in 2005, which was acquired by Google 18 months later for $1.76B. Delicious is part of AVOS, a new Internet company based in San Mateo, California.
