---
title: "Don't Tar Me With The Furl Brush: Declaring Independence with Delicious"
date: 2005-11-04T00:37:07Z
modified: 2005-11-04T00:37:07Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/dont-tar-me-with-the-furl-brush-declaring-independence-with-delicious/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 386
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2005-11-04T00:37:07Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

 I was talking to [Stephen](http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/) the other day and I asked him if he had furled something.

He replied: “**Dont tar me with the furl brush”.** You see, Stepho is a [del.icio.us](http://del.icio.us/) bigot.

Basically I keep meaning to fire [furl](http://www.furl.net/), but then end up sticking with it, because that is where I have stored so much data. Its like of one of those doomed relationships where you know you want out, but you feel you’ve invested so much emotionally you can’t make a clean break. Its like I am worried furl can’t live without me… 😉

But just how long is it since furl introduced any new features? What have you done for me lately?

What is wrong with furl? Basically its another story of an acquisition for no reason. Looksmart has not added any new functionality since it acquired furl. Except adding the Looksmart logo to the main page. Actually guys that just LooksDumb.

I don’t want to sound too self-righteous but furl doesn’t even have a blog, unlike pretty much every decent web service I can think of. Its bad enough when enterprise software companies acquire other firms to milk their customer bases for maintenance fees. What are these services milking us for? Why buy a company you’re going to do nothing with?

I want new functionality on a regular basis. You wouldn’t read the same blog entry every day, would you? This is the beginning of the road for social bookmarking, not the end.

A long time ago I blogged about [Furl versus delicious](http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/000254.html) comparisons. Without an API, you can’t be a platform. Check out this [updated google fight](http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=%22del.icio.us+API%22+&word2=+%22furl+API%22).

The simple truth is there is no comparison. While furl is an application, delicious is a platform. It has APIs and developers innovating to it. Things like being able to [play MP3s on delicious links](http://blog.del.icio.us/blog/2005/10/we_rock.html).

So as of today, I am going to stop storing things in Furl and start using delicious instead.

If furl starts to innovate I may come back, but for now I am delicious.

\[Apologies to Dan Howard, aronaut and David Rossiter, who subscribe to my furl links. Don’t worry though I should be able to splice delicious tagged items into my RSS stream, like Stephen does.\]