What Would Microsoft Do With Delicious?

Writing by Brick Marketing Admin on Friday, 1 of February , 2008 at 10:58 am

Now that the cat is out of the bag about Microsoft’s offer to buy out Yahoo!, let’s talk about del.icio.us.

As you know, del.icio.us is the social bookmarking site that is owned by Yahoo! It is the most popular social bookmarking site. Yes, even more popular than Digg. But Digg is much more social and better in terms of social marketing.

For the most part, del.icio.us still looks the way it did in 1999. Not much has changed. You have the capability to add friends to your network, but it’s a little cumbersome to do so. It is very streamlined. No photos and lengthy profiles. It’s mostly just a place to save bookmarks and that’s all its ever really aspired to be. Is it broke?

One might think that being in first place would mean nothing needs to change. But how long will del.icio.us remain the most popular bookmarking site if it doesn’t change? Would Microsoft change it? Yahoo! hasn’t.

I for one think that del.icio.us can be improved. It doesn’t need much. The bookmarking is good enough. But it is a little cumbersome to save bookmarks that you find through others. Perhaps giving users a choice between saving bookmarks and keeping notes on them and simply voting on the bookmarks without saving them would be an improvement. I don’t know what other del.icio.us users would say about that. But I’d like it.

Another thing I’d like to see is a more expansive profile page for del.icio.us users. The ability to upload photos and link to one’s website or blog would be nice. And as long as we’re going that route, why not give users the ability to vote up or down the profiles of other users. By giving people the ability to vote others up or down, del.icio.us can discourage spammers from just bookmarking anything and everything.

Some of the features of del.icio.us are nice, but hidden. You have to really search to figure out how to send a note to another user that you have a bookmark for them. More explicit instructions on some of the features would be nice.

I’m not sure how I feel about Microsoft buying Yahoo! (if it happens), but if it does happen I’d like to see del.icio.us slightly improved.

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Category: Social Bookmarking

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