Yahoo’s Got Good Taste

It seems strange to consider now, but just a few short years ago Yahoo – the one time dot com darling – was being written off by many if not most in the technology industry as an old dog that couldn’t learn new tricks. While I wouldn’t quite put myself in that category, I was relatively convinced that Yahoo’s ambitions as a major media player had sidetracked it from the industry that got it to the dance: technology.

But a couple of hundred Jeremy Zawodny missives and some astute acquisitions later, and it’s clear to me anyway that Yahoo’s not only committed to the technology game, they’re major players. They continue that trend today with the acquisition of one of my favorite web applications, Josh Schachter’s del.icio.us. Josh has the news here, and Jeremy confirms it here.

A bunch of people, knowing of my affection for the service, have written to ask what I think. Before I get to that, let me just say congratulations to Josh and co. I have no idea what the financial terms of the deal were, but am sure they made out well – Josh had a very good grasp of the ins and outs of financing and funding, as befits an ex-Morgan Stanley dev. But I’m pleased for Josh a.) because I’ve been a fan of the service he self-funded for quite a long time, and b.) when I was last in NYC he was kind enough to take some time out of his schedule and give me the grand tour of del.icio.us space and architecture. Very sharp guy.

But apart from some personal satisfaction on behalf of a contact, what do I think of the deal as a relatively heavy user of the service? I’m cautiously optimistic. Why? Two reasons:

1. History:
   I’m well aware that the acquisition of Flickr by Yahoo was not w/o its share of issues – some very serious – but my experience as a user pre and post acquisition has been relatively seamless. In some respects, the experience is much improved; there are less system “massages” these days, and unlike del.icio.us’ competitor Furl, Flick’s actually continuing to add new features. Overall, I’d rate Yahoo’s stewardship of the Flickr community fairly good. Given that Yahoo undoubtedly realizes that del.icio.us, like Flickr – or eBay, MySpace or Digg for that matter, is only as good as the community that powers it I’d suspect little in the way of major changes. What will be interesting is whether or not, as I’ve postulated in the past, Yahoo can find a way to use del.icio.us to enhance search results.

2. Scalability:
   Earlier this week, we had an interesting discussion on scalability with respect to FeedLounge and other Web 2.0 type applications – in which category I’d certainly place del.icio.us. That particular debate was framed by, in my opinion, two central conclusions: scaling applications is a.) hard and b.) expensive. del.icio.us, despite its funding, was not immune to these challenges. While it’s uptime has generally been very good – more than acceptable for my usage (I don’t need 24×7 availability, after all) – there are certainly things that Yahoo with greater reach and resources will be able to achieve than del.icio.us could on its own. The latency is one area that I’d love to see them spend time on. It’s not bad, but del.icio.us would be infitely more usable if it was Google fast.

None of this is to say, of course, that del.icio.us won’t go the way of Bloglines, or worse – Furl, and get swallowed up and lost amidst the corporate halls of their new corporate overlord. But for the reasons above, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.