Delicious Top Searches of 2008 Aren't What You'd Expect
Last week marked the 3rd anniversary of Yahoo's acquisition of the most popular social bookmarking site it the world, Delicious. Has Yahoo! made the most of it? One more indication that they have not came today with the release of the Top 10 search queries that people used on Delicious in 2008 There is a big disconnect between what people submit to the site and what people go there looking for.
If you spend much time looking at Delicous/popular day to day, then you know it's very geeky. The most popular search queries on the site, though? Words like "news" and "restaurants." That says to us that the service is probably serving neither group, geeks or mainstream searchers, as well as it could be. Below is the list of this year's top searches.
The Top Ten Delicious Searches of 2008
What Does it Mean?
We're not sure what to make of it, but it seems like a problem when the resources most extensively contributed to a system aren't the ones most sought after. By sheer number of times bookmarked the #1 result in a search for "restaurants" (Yelp), wouldn't even make it on the front page of a search for Javascript. There are far better vetted resources on the site for Javascript than there are for restaurants, but it's restaurants people search for.
You Probably Shouldn't Use Delicious's Search At All
We use Delicious to look things up a lot here at ReadWriteWeb - but this author never uses the search function there. When I wanted a laptop skin for my computer, I went to http://delicous.com/popular/laptopskin. When people ask me what the best software for recording screencasts is I direct them to http://delicous.com/popular/screencasts. When I'm looking for blogs about, say ceramics http://delicious.com/tag/blog+ceramics.
When you use Delicious search it's hard to know what you're getting. A search for "RSS" for example, points you to Bloglines first and foremost. Google Reader isn't on the list, though it's been bookmarked more times than Bloglines has. An anti-Google conspiracy? No, search for "spreadsheets" and you'll find Google Docs.
We don't know what to make of it. It just seems like one more way that Yahoo! is probably missing some big opportunities with Delicious.
Comments
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I really like your no-bullsh*t approach, keep it up!
RWW rock :)
Posted by: LeRoy | December 18, 2008 11:55 AM
Thanks for the tip on how to use delicious to find stuff. It's obvious but I had overlooked the usefulness of delicious in this way. If I'm yahoo, I find a way to integrate that sort of delicious result into my search results. It's something no other search engine could offer.
Posted by: Joe | December 18, 2008 11:57 AM
Delicious is the best site on the web, but it could be so much more. Like #2 said, I've always thought it should be used to improve search engine results, or as the basis for new kinds of search tools. I want to buy it from yahoo. How much do you think they want?
Posted by: Bill | December 18, 2008 12:46 PM
I think you may be overstating the importance of search on Delicious. Since its beginning I think it has had much more value as a personal repository for bookmarks with cloud backup and tags.
Agree 100% that Yahoo has done nothing with it, which is why they can not develop an overall corporate startegy or a strategy at the LOB level. I think that Delicious will become a first mover that lost their advantage due to Yahoo's neglect.
Posted by: rhhfla | December 18, 2008 1:48 PM
Other bookmark services have more features, but for ease of use delicious is still best. The Firefox extension is one of the best. And delicious has a very well supported API. But you certainly are right about their search, it sucks. Deligoo is a nice 3rd-party way to search delicious, but it should be part of delicious by default. Wierd how they fumbled the search aspect.
Posted by: thegeniusfiles | December 18, 2008 10:03 PM
I use it to discover what has been popular on a day to day basis. I click on tags on the right side of the home page so I can get news or reference articles on specific subject.
I never used the search button actually.
browsing from tags to relevant tags sort of complement all the news reading I do in Google reader.
Posted by: SImon.Rain | December 18, 2008 10:29 PM
Dear all,
On one side Delicious stores high quality information of favorite e-resources selected by experts. However, on the other side, these e-resources are more-or-less accessible through browsing; the search facility is not generating better results than generic search engines such as Google, Microsoft Live or Yahoo!
The coordinators of the Focuss.Info Initiative (www.focuss.info) underline the value of social bookmarking. Therefore they are promoting social bookmarking among peers specialized in the field of international development cooperation. To make sure their personal collections of favorite e-resources are accessible to everybody, the Focuss.Info Initiative is linking social bookmark accounts, mostly from Delicious.com, to the Google CSE search engine. Through this, the e-resources are full text retrievable and accessible.
So, even though the Initiative already runs for one-and-a-half year it is still a cutting-edge opportunity: offering the ones working in international development studies a high quality research tool with fulltext accessibility.
Posted by: Richard Lalleman | December 19, 2008 12:20 AM
Could it be... that if a person unfamiliar with what delicious is came to the site and searched for restaurants because its called Delicious?
Posted by: Dylan | January 6, 2009 9:07 PM