Pinboard Acquires Delicious
June 1, 2017 9:52 PM Subscribe
Pinboard has acquired Delicious.
I loved delicious before became it became unpalatable.
posted by srboisvert at 9:59 PM on June 1, 2017 [11 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 9:59 PM on June 1, 2017 [11 favorites]
That's dope. Maciej is a great guy.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:08 PM on June 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:08 PM on June 1, 2017 [3 favorites]
Or even the greatest guy.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:12 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Foci for Analysis at 10:12 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
I just wanna export all my bookmarks but the site won't let me...
posted by twsf at 10:16 PM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by twsf at 10:16 PM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]
twsf, if you're talking about your Delicious bookmarks, Maciej says he'll fix the broken export link, which was disabled "for performance reasons."
posted by cgc373 at 10:18 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by cgc373 at 10:18 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Never mind export, i want to import but "Bulk importing bookmarks from a flat file is currently not supported on Delicious.com." I've got over 3 years worth stashed away. March 12, 2013 was last time I imported.
posted by unliteral at 10:28 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by unliteral at 10:28 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
https://pinboard.in/api#posts_add
posted by yeahwhatever at 10:39 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by yeahwhatever at 10:39 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Seriously, Maciej completely rules. Reading his writing has been one of the few bright spots of 2017 for me.
posted by potrzebie at 10:46 PM on June 1, 2017 [14 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 10:46 PM on June 1, 2017 [14 favorites]
So Pinboard, which started partly in response to a del.icio.us redesign in 2009, has now acquired its inspiration.
I find this outcome particularly interesting because six years ago a relaunch/redesign of del.icio.us led to a new influx of Pinboard users from fandom, which is a big part of why I decided to trust it and start using it. And, like Anil Dash, Cegłowski practices and celebrates small, sustainable, profitable tech businesses: "I enjoy the looking-glass aspect of our industry, where running a mildly profitable small business makes me a crazy maverick not afraid to break all the rules." I am an entrepreneur starting a small business in technology and do not intend to seek venture capital, etc., and I find Cegłowski's cheerfulness and success reassuring.
This is also a vindication of his "don't be a free user" advice: "Like a service? Make them charge you or show you ads. If they won't do it, clone them and do it yourself. Soon you'll be the only game in town!"
posted by brainwane at 10:49 PM on June 1, 2017 [28 favorites]
I find this outcome particularly interesting because six years ago a relaunch/redesign of del.icio.us led to a new influx of Pinboard users from fandom, which is a big part of why I decided to trust it and start using it. And, like Anil Dash, Cegłowski practices and celebrates small, sustainable, profitable tech businesses: "I enjoy the looking-glass aspect of our industry, where running a mildly profitable small business makes me a crazy maverick not afraid to break all the rules." I am an entrepreneur starting a small business in technology and do not intend to seek venture capital, etc., and I find Cegłowski's cheerfulness and success reassuring.
This is also a vindication of his "don't be a free user" advice: "Like a service? Make them charge you or show you ads. If they won't do it, clone them and do it yourself. Soon you'll be the only game in town!"
posted by brainwane at 10:49 PM on June 1, 2017 [28 favorites]
I guess patience pays of - I remember when @pinboard was offering $35 and now they're raised the by 1000%.
I'm as confused about why they sold out for only $35k as I am that @pinboard thought it was worth that much.
posted by wotsac at 10:57 PM on June 1, 2017
I'm as confused about why they sold out for only $35k as I am that @pinboard thought it was worth that much.
posted by wotsac at 10:57 PM on June 1, 2017
i was just thinking of writing a quick email to the pinboard guy today, thanking him for his really really super operation. best of the web.
posted by lescour at 11:06 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by lescour at 11:06 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Oh, and:
posted by brennen at 11:32 PM on June 1, 2017 [14 favorites]
If anyone still works at Flickr… call me 📞Hehe.
posted by brennen at 11:32 PM on June 1, 2017 [14 favorites]
This is cool news. (though honestly I still mostly use the scrapbook plugin for firefox)
I wrote Maciej an email a bit ago with an idea for Pinboard (it could also work with Pocket/Firefox) but never heard back. Curious what you guys think, if it's not too off topic:
One alternative to the standard ad revenue model I've heard that I liked is where users put X dollars per month into a sort of general fund and then it gets payed out gradually and automatically in micropayments as they browse. I'm sure I've heard about some startup that was planning on doing this at some point but can't remember what it was.
But here's a similar model that could work better: people pay Pinboard X dollars extra per month and then, at the end of the month, Pinboard pays out that money to the sites that they have bookmarked. All the sites have to do is sign up with Pinboard and they get a check every month. A bookmarking site is in many ways the ideal clearinghouse for data about how users would likely want to allocate money for content.
Of course the site could add things like allowing people to allocate weights differently, and having separate lists for sites that are bookmarked and sites that people want to pay for, etc... Also you could set up gift subscriptions, because that would make a great gift.
posted by ropeladder at 12:14 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
I wrote Maciej an email a bit ago with an idea for Pinboard (it could also work with Pocket/Firefox) but never heard back. Curious what you guys think, if it's not too off topic:
One alternative to the standard ad revenue model I've heard that I liked is where users put X dollars per month into a sort of general fund and then it gets payed out gradually and automatically in micropayments as they browse. I'm sure I've heard about some startup that was planning on doing this at some point but can't remember what it was.
But here's a similar model that could work better: people pay Pinboard X dollars extra per month and then, at the end of the month, Pinboard pays out that money to the sites that they have bookmarked. All the sites have to do is sign up with Pinboard and they get a check every month. A bookmarking site is in many ways the ideal clearinghouse for data about how users would likely want to allocate money for content.
Of course the site could add things like allowing people to allocate weights differently, and having separate lists for sites that are bookmarked and sites that people want to pay for, etc... Also you could set up gift subscriptions, because that would make a great gift.
posted by ropeladder at 12:14 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
The Next Web got ahold of Maciej for a quote:
posted by Martijn at 12:43 AM on June 2, 2017 [15 favorites]
I am the greatest.They also confirmed the 35k USD price tag.
posted by Martijn at 12:43 AM on June 2, 2017 [15 favorites]
ropeladder, the system you describe is similar to the payment model for the Brave web Browser. I hope these types of systems become more common.
posted by Svejk at 12:53 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Svejk at 12:53 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
Brilliant. I moved to Pinboard after Chen and Hurley bought Delicious and tried to turn it into Pinterest (having clearly done no research on hard core users like me, despite claiming that they had.)
In the meantime, I love Pinboard, and am glad that they have managed to create a sustainable business model.
posted by DanCall at 1:31 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
In the meantime, I love Pinboard, and am glad that they have managed to create a sustainable business model.
posted by DanCall at 1:31 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
This is awesome. Go Maciej!
posted by doctornemo at 3:26 AM on June 2, 2017
posted by doctornemo at 3:26 AM on June 2, 2017
I did not know Delicious survived the period where Yahoo announced it was being sunset. I guess I exported my bookmarks and never looked back.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 3:51 AM on June 2, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 3:51 AM on June 2, 2017 [7 favorites]
If anyone still works at Flickr… call me 📞
Make this happen.
posted by acb at 3:53 AM on June 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
Make this happen.
posted by acb at 3:53 AM on June 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
This is the best thing that could happen to Delicious. Maciej is good people.
And I'm amazed it cost him only about as much as my student loan balance to buy it.
posted by SansPoint at 4:46 AM on June 2, 2017
And I'm amazed it cost him only about as much as my student loan balance to buy it.
posted by SansPoint at 4:46 AM on June 2, 2017
Do not attempt to compete with Pinboard.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 5:51 AM on June 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 5:51 AM on June 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
TIL delicious still exists.
posted by chavenet at 5:58 AM on June 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 5:58 AM on June 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
Maciej bought delicious.com, including billion links worth of saved user data from the formative years of the web, for $35,000 USD.
Do not attempt to compete with Pinboard.
posted by enfa at 6:10 AM on June 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
Do not attempt to compete with Pinboard.
posted by enfa at 6:10 AM on June 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
Makes me hopeful. Maybe I can start using delicious again.
posted by evilDoug at 6:33 AM on June 2, 2017
posted by evilDoug at 6:33 AM on June 2, 2017
Makes me hopeful. Maybe I can start using delicious again.
He's putting Delicious into read-only mode in a few weeks, so...probably not.
posted by protocoach at 6:43 AM on June 2, 2017
He's putting Delicious into read-only mode in a few weeks, so...probably not.
posted by protocoach at 6:43 AM on June 2, 2017
Pinboard is a great example of what's called a "lifestyle business"; it's not going to be a billion dollar company but certainly makes enough money to support a small staff. Tech investors looks derisively on that kind of thing because it's not going to make a VC fund rich, but fuck that. I love Pinboard and am delighted someone like Maciej can make enough of a living doing it and have some time left over for travel and political organizing.
I've used Delicious and now Pinboard for almost 15 years. I use it for my linkblog, I bookmark about 3 URLs a day and publish them as a blog for people to follow along. It's very old school. These days most people seem to follow it on Twitter (self-link), which works out pretty well. But the RSS feed still works fine. Pinboard mostly works great, except the API seems to fail pretty frequently. The Chrome extension I use for posting now at least detects API failures so things aren't silently lost.
posted by Nelson at 7:07 AM on June 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
I've used Delicious and now Pinboard for almost 15 years. I use it for my linkblog, I bookmark about 3 URLs a day and publish them as a blog for people to follow along. It's very old school. These days most people seem to follow it on Twitter (self-link), which works out pretty well. But the RSS feed still works fine. Pinboard mostly works great, except the API seems to fail pretty frequently. The Chrome extension I use for posting now at least detects API failures so things aren't silently lost.
posted by Nelson at 7:07 AM on June 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
Everyone else seems weirdly happy about this, but as someone who never left Delicious (and was hoping in vain that someone who gave a damn would eventually acquire it), I'm bummed. Is there any purpose to him buying Delicious except to break it and therefore force its users to buy his own service? I'm sure that makes sense from a business standpoint but it sure does boil my frog.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 7:27 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 7:27 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think the point of him buying it is that if he hadn't, it, and all your data, would have likely vanished soon. He's committed to hosting it so that your data is around for awhile, and you can migrate to Pinboard, which offers most, if not all, of the functionality of delicious.
posted by gwint at 7:30 AM on June 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by gwint at 7:30 AM on June 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
No word from @joshu, btw, other than retweeting news of the sale.
posted by gwint at 7:32 AM on June 2, 2017
posted by gwint at 7:32 AM on June 2, 2017
Wow, EXISTENZ, you stuck with delicious all these years through all the changes? Wasn't it down for long periods of time? Did you like any of the changes that were made since AVOS bought it in 2011?
Like gwint says, it seems likely that the next step for delicious would have been a total shutdown. A $35k purchase price is barely enough to pay the lawyer who drew up the contract. You can look at it as being "forced" to pay $11/year to Maciej, but as a long time Pinboard user I promise you'll get your money's worth. The best news is he's re-enabling the export from Delicious so you can finally get your data out of it again. You can then take your data to some other service if you don't like the idea of paying for Pinboard. I'm not sure there are any though; the social bookmarking space is not exactly hot with competition.
(BTW, Pinboard has a premium account for an extra $14/year that is really great. It gives you a full-text search over all the web pages in your bookmarks and, as a side effect, makes cached copies of everything you bookmark. It's pretty handy if you use Pinboard a lot.)
posted by Nelson at 7:54 AM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]
Like gwint says, it seems likely that the next step for delicious would have been a total shutdown. A $35k purchase price is barely enough to pay the lawyer who drew up the contract. You can look at it as being "forced" to pay $11/year to Maciej, but as a long time Pinboard user I promise you'll get your money's worth. The best news is he's re-enabling the export from Delicious so you can finally get your data out of it again. You can then take your data to some other service if you don't like the idea of paying for Pinboard. I'm not sure there are any though; the social bookmarking space is not exactly hot with competition.
(BTW, Pinboard has a premium account for an extra $14/year that is really great. It gives you a full-text search over all the web pages in your bookmarks and, as a side effect, makes cached copies of everything you bookmark. It's pretty handy if you use Pinboard a lot.)
posted by Nelson at 7:54 AM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]
IIRC there was some sharing feature on delicious . . and when the service stopped working, I ended up with Pinterest because i needed to share links and collaborate (design boards for shows I was working on). Pinboard did not then and does not now support that feature, which is why I am stuck with Pinterest. But at least my links are hella confusing. The ads I get make no sense.
posted by Medieval Maven at 8:06 AM on June 2, 2017
posted by Medieval Maven at 8:06 AM on June 2, 2017
Pinboard also has sharing, despite it being marketed as Social Bookmarking for Introverts. You can subscribe to people's publicly shared links, see what other links people have added based on tags, and all kinds of cool stuff.
Plus it's actively maintained. $11 a year is worth every penny, though I snagged my account back when it was a one-time fee. I'm really thinking about doing that $14/yr archival plan too. I went through my bookmarks a while back to clear out the cruft, and some stuff disappeared, which made me sad.
Plus, Maciej is good people. He's the guy behind the Tech Solidarity movement, trying to get tech workers to push their companies against Trumpism, and give non-profits IT support and funding by tech employees.
posted by SansPoint at 8:29 AM on June 2, 2017 [8 favorites]
Plus it's actively maintained. $11 a year is worth every penny, though I snagged my account back when it was a one-time fee. I'm really thinking about doing that $14/yr archival plan too. I went through my bookmarks a while back to clear out the cruft, and some stuff disappeared, which made me sad.
Plus, Maciej is good people. He's the guy behind the Tech Solidarity movement, trying to get tech workers to push their companies against Trumpism, and give non-profits IT support and funding by tech employees.
posted by SansPoint at 8:29 AM on June 2, 2017 [8 favorites]
So, when I was a kid, I vaguely wanted to be rich basically because rich seemed to equal glamorous -- my sister and I spent hours in the backyard playing in the sand and pretending to be international jet-setter millionaire witches. But then in my late teens and my twenties, as mass media "glamor" got less shiny for me, the only thing that seemed appealing to me about being rich was that then you wouldn't have to worry as much about the future. Once a rich person owns a place to live outright, as long as they have enough for property taxes and food and similar expenses, they're set. Medical emergencies? Won't bankrupt them. Kids' college? No worries. Basically the only appeal of being rich was a level of freedom and reduction of worry in personal life decisions. Prosperity is security for you and your household, and beyond that it would be irritating because of having to deal with other people's greed.
And now I am older and well-off enough to see, well, actually, if you have tens of thousands of dollars at your disposal, you can save a charity. You can jump-start an artist's career. You can buy a beloved old thing and rescue and preserve and share it. You can DO GENUINELY COOL SHIT. Not glamorous, cool -- spectacular, worthy of admiration, elegant in the way a good hack is elegant, as unexpected yet fitting as the punchline to a joke.
If I work hard and get lucky, and my business takes off, then maybe someday I will be well-off enough to be able to do something as cool as what Pinboard has just done. I should start thinking about what that could be.
posted by brainwane at 8:58 AM on June 2, 2017 [17 favorites]
And now I am older and well-off enough to see, well, actually, if you have tens of thousands of dollars at your disposal, you can save a charity. You can jump-start an artist's career. You can buy a beloved old thing and rescue and preserve and share it. You can DO GENUINELY COOL SHIT. Not glamorous, cool -- spectacular, worthy of admiration, elegant in the way a good hack is elegant, as unexpected yet fitting as the punchline to a joke.
If I work hard and get lucky, and my business takes off, then maybe someday I will be well-off enough to be able to do something as cool as what Pinboard has just done. I should start thinking about what that could be.
posted by brainwane at 8:58 AM on June 2, 2017 [17 favorites]
In 3 years this will all come full circle when Maciej announces he just bought Yahoo.
posted by COD at 9:03 AM on June 2, 2017 [17 favorites]
posted by COD at 9:03 AM on June 2, 2017 [17 favorites]
I've been thinking about Flickr, wondering what it would take to just buy it and keep it alive. Outstanding to hear maciej's doing this.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:06 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:06 AM on June 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
On a very bad news day, hearing about this really tickled me.
I wish to God we could get fandom to start using a service like this again. tumblr is a hellpit on which older posts might just as well be tossed straight into a black hole.
Also I will never get tired of his twitter talking smack about Elon Musk et al.
posted by praemunire at 10:29 AM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]
I wish to God we could get fandom to start using a service like this again. tumblr is a hellpit on which older posts might just as well be tossed straight into a black hole.
Also I will never get tired of his twitter talking smack about Elon Musk et al.
posted by praemunire at 10:29 AM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]
No word from @joshu, btw, other than retweeting news of the sale.
More word!
posted by kenko at 12:17 PM on June 2, 2017
More word!
posted by kenko at 12:17 PM on June 2, 2017
This makes me happy, too, because Maciej seems to understand that different users have different needs and Delicious was certainly not being run with that in mind.
Now if he would only put the Popular Tweets back somewhere we can still see them if we would like. I understand removing them from the main popular page, but they could live somewhere else. Right now, you can't see the most popular links for a certain tag, only the most recent ones.
posted by soelo at 12:21 PM on June 2, 2017
Now if he would only put the Popular Tweets back somewhere we can still see them if we would like. I understand removing them from the main popular page, but they could live somewhere else. Right now, you can't see the most popular links for a certain tag, only the most recent ones.
posted by soelo at 12:21 PM on June 2, 2017
ropeladder, I think you've described exactly the old Readability model. They had issues. It could probably have been handled much, much better, and 2017 is not 2012, so I'm not trying to suggest it shouldn't be tried again, by Brave or anybody else, but some of the issues do seem thorny.
The main problem I remember Readability running into was that they were essentially requiring people to sign up and agree to terms of service in order to claim "their" money. It seemed a bit like a shakedown.
posted by pwinn at 12:45 PM on June 2, 2017
The main problem I remember Readability running into was that they were essentially requiring people to sign up and agree to terms of service in order to claim "their" money. It seemed a bit like a shakedown.
posted by pwinn at 12:45 PM on June 2, 2017
Oh, and checking Pinboard, apparently I "Joined July 14, 2009" which was probably right around Yahoo's big redesign of Delicious. According to the "about" page, that's the same month he opened up paid accounts.
Bravo, maciej!
posted by pwinn at 12:52 PM on June 2, 2017
Bravo, maciej!
posted by pwinn at 12:52 PM on June 2, 2017
Now if he would only put the Popular Tweets back somewhere we can still see them if we would like.
I don't know the thing you're talking about, but when the most recent saved links disappeared from the main nav bar, the url still worked as before when manually typed in. (still does, in fact)
posted by ctmf at 5:34 PM on June 2, 2017
I don't know the thing you're talking about, but when the most recent saved links disappeared from the main nav bar, the url still worked as before when manually typed in. (still does, in fact)
posted by ctmf at 5:34 PM on June 2, 2017
I was so happy when those Popular Tweets disappeared that I never questioned whether other people might have liked them or wanted them back.
posted by cgc373 at 6:10 PM on June 2, 2017
posted by cgc373 at 6:10 PM on June 2, 2017
delicious could have been so cool ... im content w pocket, any reason not to be?
posted by specialk420 at 6:39 PM on June 2, 2017
posted by specialk420 at 6:39 PM on June 2, 2017
Pinboard's sharing features are my secret weapon at work. Whenever I'm wrestling with a problem I just add the relevant keywords to my tags subscription page and wait for the latent pinboard hivemend to produce something interesting.
It's like AskMe and a Magic 8-ball had a baby and swaddled it in a professional white background
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:29 PM on June 2, 2017 [7 favorites]
It's like AskMe and a Magic 8-ball had a baby and swaddled it in a professional white background
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:29 PM on June 2, 2017 [7 favorites]
→ users put X dollars per month into a sort of general fund and
Also describes Flattr quite well.
posted by scruss at 9:07 AM on June 3, 2017
Also describes Flattr quite well.
posted by scruss at 9:07 AM on June 3, 2017
when the most recent saved links disappeared from the main nav bar
On the popular page, anything from twitter.com is removed. The most recent tweets saved are full of jewelry spam. There is a separate page for popular wikipedia links and I would like one for twitter as well. There wasn't a separate page for the twitter links, so there is no URL to try. I did try pinboard.in/popular/twitter but it doesn't work.
posted by soelo at 7:22 AM on June 5, 2017
On the popular page, anything from twitter.com is removed. The most recent tweets saved are full of jewelry spam. There is a separate page for popular wikipedia links and I would like one for twitter as well. There wasn't a separate page for the twitter links, so there is no URL to try. I did try pinboard.in/popular/twitter but it doesn't work.
posted by soelo at 7:22 AM on June 5, 2017
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go pinboard guy (maciej) go! I hope that union for tech workers thing works
posted by hleehowon at 9:56 PM on June 1, 2017 [8 favorites]