by adding social networking jazz to it, there is a very real threat of alienating the core del.icio.us user base

What about categorisizing ur bookmarks.

Like flickr offers a Set feature.

U can group tags into one set .

IS that feature there in delicious?

The delicious redesign messed up the help section. I would prefer a single 3-column parent help page with lists of all
sub-pages.

The last thing I need is a del.icio.us beginning to incorporate professional resumes, dating-style profiles or the possibility to incorporate shoutboxes or similar "social networking" glue. Leave that kind of functionality to the MySpace wannabes out there and focus on your core competency of providing serendipitious discovery through using the tag as the organising unit around which to build communities based on similar interests.

Saying that del.icio.us needs a user interface overhaul is missing the point entirely. First of all it does in fact have a search box on the front page, second of all its user interface is "command line based" in the sense that you generate the URL yourself according to what query you want to make. This is the fastest kind of user/website interaction imaginable and it is one, which caters exactly to the kind of information professionals savvy enough to use a tool such as del.icio.us - mind you, many of these are information science professionals, who have been used to invoke the arcane syntax of library catalogue search engines for years. Finally, use one of the many browser plugins available to facilitate access to your del.icio.us portfolio.

Don't turn del.icio.us into the next Friendster flop because of a misguided belief that you need to go mainstream. Capitalise on the acquisition by using the contributions of your information professional userbase to cultivate and seed the catalogue of your Overture search engine but don't make the mistake of thinking that del.icio.us can become some sort of glitzy, mainstream user attractor. It is not and will never be that.

In both cases, it is interesting to follow the interesting content to find out more about the creators. There have been many times that I've discovered some interesting bookmarks and wished I knew more about the bookmarker. I think we will se a very lightweight Flickr-like approach to sociality in the system, and it will be very successful. The delicious folks are too smart to try and overreach on this.

Please Joshua, fix Delicious and make it function better before I have to start creating yet another profile.

They should have a look at Google. It tries hard to become something else (maps, gmail, orkut etc.), but essentially it is still a search engine...

You all remember what happened when facebook tried something different recently, stay in your niche, plz!

I love del.ici.ous because it's dead simple, and allows me to save some 500 bookmarks in one place, and leverage that by seeing what other people have saved.

The more features they add, the more I think that that they get away from what makes del.ici.ous useful to me. There are lots of social networking apps out there, so one site to cover del.ici.ous, digg, and squidoo does not really interest me. Each has their place, but not as one application, which is what Joshua seems to want to do.

I tend to heavily comment on my saved sites not so much for others, but for my own spotty recollection. If others gain benefit from it, then that is a bonus. I guess it's social networking via self interest (or in my case self-help).

While there have been times that I have wanted to contact people that are interested in the same things I am, I can't say that the idea of getting 1100 comments on some World of Warcraft site I saved to revisit really helps me in the way I approach the application.

I can understand the reasons why they want to go this route though: low barrier to entry, easily copied killer app, they need to show some value to Yahoo, etc.

Just don't screw it up too much.

loosely speaking, an online social network is defined as a website where one connects with those sharing common interests - be it personal or professional. after friendster, there have been a rapid increase in the number of social networks in the market. few, however, were able to achieve (and maintain) an acceptable member density. the social network's structure and setup, in addition to its shared interests, determine its usefulness to its individual members, hence their loyalty and participation.

Smaller, tighter networks can be less useful to their members than networks with lots of loose connections (weak ties) to individuals outside the main network. More "open" networks, with many weak ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and opportunities to their members than closed networks with many redundant ties. In other words, a group of friends who only do things with each other already share the same knowledge and opportunities. -wikipedia

and therein lies delicious' relative success with similar social bookmarking site like magnolia. network connections within delicious are weaker compared to that of magnolia. and by having weak connection, delicious is more successful in a social bookmarking's mantra: keep, share and discover and discover and discover....

check out delicious' and magnolia's traffic sites here, if its any help at all that delicious should just remain as it is.

We're not "becoming" anything other than what we are.

Amongst many other things we're working on, we're going to make it a bit easier to find people and a bit easier to share with people in a few different ways.

We're not going to make radical changes to the primary goal of the system. Instead, we have been listening to what people are trying to do and will make that a bit easier. That includes finding people you already know and so on.

Saving links has always been and will continue to be the focus and primary value of the system.

There it is, a recommendation for users to look at, and maybe add to your Watchlist, or perhaps invite to join a Group, based on link and tag similarities.

That feature has been a part of Simpy for... a year or two.

If you're curious about others similar to you, just upload or import your links, and check back in a few hours.

I just surfed over there and have to admit to have been somewhat disappointed to see the front page full of somebody apparently dumping a bucket of spam links under the heading of "Cheap flights to Canada" into your database (user "gdog12")..

Most likely this sort of spamming is going on in del.icio.us too we just don't see it since they're promoting more the popular links on their front page.

But I take Joshua's point that bookmarking will still be the core focus of del.icio.us.