

Delicious.com loses its holy grail - briancray
http://briancray.com/2009/08/17/delicious-front-page-fails/
Delicious.com has lost value to publishers. Why promote it on your blog at all?
======
apotheon
I just realized that:

A) I don't even use delicious for anything but storage, basically; it's where
I keep most of my browser bookmarks, via a plugin in my browser.

B) If delicious isn't making money hand over fist, it may not survive more
than a couple more years.

I need to back up my delicious bookmarks, post-haste.

~~~
sireat
There was that other bookmarking service whose DB got corrupted a few months
back. Backing up is always a good idea.

I've grown to depend on Delicious bookmarks too much, since I work from
multiple locations.

That said, I use the front page of Delicious maybe a couple of times a year,
tops.

------
patio11
I have never, to my knowledge, been on the Delicious front page. However,
they're the only social bookmarking I have ever had success with. Slap that
beautiful, beautiful Delicious button which says "X people have saved this"
(social proof!) on a meaty reference article aimed at geeks and you'll get a
long-tail stream of tech-oriented linkerati visiting that page for years,
rather than the typical big-one-minute-gone-the-next tidal wave of ADHD
chipmunks hopped up on crystal meth.

This has resulted in a few of my reference articles getting more than enough
links to justify the pixels.

~~~
dangrossman
Did you custom code that with the API?

I did a bit of searching but haven't come across a way to add a "save with
delicious" type link that shows how many people already have.

Not from delicious nor from anyone else, except as part of one of those big
"add a grid of 100 social networks in a big popup when someone clicks share"
buttons.

~~~
briancray
Yea those big popups are _annoying_! The only good one is AddToAny.com, which
looks at the user's history to only show the ones that the user has visited.
:)

For the details of an individual bookmark, see the API
<http://delicious.com/help/api> and look for this headline:
<https://api.del.icio.us/v1/posts/get>?

~~~
micropat
Hey Brian, Pat from AddToAny. Even without the drop-down menu (which displays
the Delicious saves count) I love your implementation. If Delicious can stay
relevant we should totally add the # of saves to the share/bookmark landing
page as well.

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petercooper
Delicious is one of the Web's most under-rated services. I've been a heavy
Delicious user since 2004 and it's invaluable to me. Not just to store
bookmarks but to find stuff I _didn't_ bookmark that I just remembered about.

For example, let's say I remember seeing a site about an awesome new WordPress
theme a few weeks ago. I can go to <http://del.icio.us/popular/themes> and
chances are I'll find it. If not, I can go through the tag pages (say,
<http://delicious.com/tag/wordpress+themes>) until I find it. Google does not
even compare when it comes to finding content in this way.

Even if I backed up my Delicious account and hosted it myself somehow, it
still wouldn't have as much value as it does when combined with 100,000+ other
people's links.

~~~
briancray
Agreed. From a bookmarker's perspective, I love /popular/tag filtering

~~~
joshu
The /popular/tag algorithm is busted now, and regularly coughs up very obvious
stuff (python.org for tag python, iirc.)

I wish they hadn't messed with my algorithms so much.

~~~
briancray
Agreed. I enjoyed that delicious.com was a place I could find _articles_
related to a subject, not the site itself (if that makes sense).

delicious.com is not a stitch of what it was.

------
dangrossman
What is up with those crazy guys that took over Delicious at Yahoo!?

Not only do I not want Delicious to be a Tweetmeme clone, but the front page
has a two column layout with an empty second column unless you switch away
from the fresh tab... what?

~~~
briancray
Tweetmeme clone is exactly what it has become!

------
schammy
This article is garbage. Delicious is not Digg and it's not Reddit and if
you're only using it to boost traffic to your site - you have no fucking clue
what this service is actually about.

~~~
briancray
lol. Did you read the article? It's from a publisher's perspective, not a
bookmarker's.

Just FYI: Neither Digg nor Reddit are only used to boost traffic either.
Apparently social media marketing is off your radar.

~~~
zefhous
You ask: "So why promote delicious bookmarking at all!?"

Well, it seems to me that you should spend more time asking yourself how to
serve your visitors rather than how to serve yourself.

The reason so much of the internet sucks is because publishers spend too much
time trying to get people on their site by doing SEO and all that crap, then
they crowd up the best parts of their website with obtrusive ads (a bit like
the ad bar right above your articles).

Instead of all that, just focus on creating good content. I'm not trying to be
mean, that just makes a better internet for all of us.

~~~
briancray
On my blog I explore everything that has to do with designing, developing, and
marketing websites. Internet marketing is an important part of an effective
website.

Regarding your implication that I don't address the user's needs, one of my
blog's primary topics is user experience design. Under that you'll find such
posts as "Online community best practices: Reward your top users," "Web form
usability: Better form submission feedback with jQuery," and "3 eye tracking
studies that influenced my latest redesign." So to imply that I'm not
concerned about what my users want or creating good content, you've been
mislead.

Good content is important. And so is finding audiences for that good content.
You need both. Good content and good traffic.

~~~
joshu
Good traffic is not the same as exploiting sources of traffic. That's actually
called spamming.

There's a lot of code in delicious (or at least there was) to prevent that
sort of gaming.

~~~
briancray
Would you say that every blog that promotes delicious bookmarking is spamming?
That's what I see you implying. If so, you are implicating nearly every
popular blog that exists today.

~~~
briancray
"The main reason to save things to delicious is for memory. Sharing is
secondary. And getting on the front page or popular were a distant third."

I think the first and second reasons apply to bookmarkers, and the third
applies to publishers. For publishers, the primary reason is the front page
IMHO.

"So stuff that goes beyond "please bookmark us" - that's what those buttons do
- seems dangerous to me. Especially since actual users have the extension or
bookmarklets installed and do not need the site buttons."

I can understand this sensitivity. If you look on my blog, I have a simple
link that says "bookmark everywhere." But my popular delicious content is no
longer rewarded with a front page link.

"I'd seen an enormous amount of shady behavior in and around this so perhaps I
am oversensitive. At one point I was spending half my day, every day, dealing
with spam on delicious."

Spam sucks hardcore ass. What else can I say?

~~~
zefhous
I don't see how you can seriously argue this. You have 10 submissions to
Hacker News, and all 10 of them are to your own website.

~~~
briancray
Argue what? I'm not denying that I use social media as part of my inbound
marketing strategy. But I engage with the people that comment. Besides, I
spend my time writing what I feel are important blog entries. I'd say I do my
part for the community I'm a part of.

