YouTube Founders Buy Delicious; First Step To Taking On Google?

Delicious, the popular social bookmarking site that Yahoo wanted to get rid of, has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Could it be a first step for the duo to jump into the search space?

From the press release put out by AVOS, the company run by the duo (note, you might not get to the release, as the AVOS site appears to have crashed):

Delicious will become part of AVOS, a new Internet company….

Going back to their roots, Hurley and Chen located Delicious in downtown San Mateo, California, blocks away from where they started YouTube. They’re aggressively hiring to build a world-class team to take on the challenge of building the best information discovery service on the web.

Discovery & Search

OK, “discovery” isn’t exactly the same as search. Discovery tends to be about serendipity. You come across interesting things even if you’re not actively seeking them out. Search is an on-demand activity. You need an answer. You search. Think the Facebook newsfeed (discovery) versus Google (search).

Still, it’s interesting that the two — in their post-Google lives — are jumping back into a space so heavily related to their former company. Well, the former company (Google) which bought the company they founded (YouTube). Chen left YouTube in July 2009; Hurley in October 2010.

Delicious Moves In July

As for the future of Delicious, Yahoo will transition by July of this year. Also from the release:

“We’re excited to work with this fantastic community and take Delicious to the next level,” said Chad Hurley, CEO of AVOS. “We see a tremendous opportunity to simplify the way users save and share content they discover anywhere on the web.”

“We spoke with numerous parties interested in acquiring the site, and chose Chad and Steve based on their passion and unique vision for Delicious,” said John Matheny, SVP of Communications and Communities at Yahoo!

The YouTube founders plan to work closely with the community over the next few months to develop innovative features to help solve the problem of information overload. “We see this problem not just in the world of video, but also cutting across every information-intensive media type,” said Chen.

The delicious blog said:

Today, we’re pleased to announce that Delicious has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. As creators of the largest online video platform, they have firsthand experience enabling millions of users to share their experiences with the world. They are committed to running and improving Delicious going forward.

Providing a seamless transition for users is incredibly important for both companies. Yahoo! will continue to operate Delicious until approximately July 2011. When the transition period is complete, your information will be moved over to Delicious’ new owner.

Starting today, we will ask you to login to Delicious again and agree to let Yahoo! transfer your bookmarks to the new owner. That way, you’ll enjoy uninterrupted use of the service and will keep your account and all of your bookmarks when we make the transition. For more information on the Delicious transition, please refer to this FAQ.

Thank you for your patience in this time of transition and thank you for using Delicious!

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