Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 70 posts

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#61

Post by sireat »

vutekst wrote: post #6

This debacle is what made me finally switch to Pinboard. Well, that and I like the Pinboard guy's developer blog. http://blog.pinboard.in/

The problem with Pinboard is a different one(I am speaking as a Delicious user who likes Pinboard and has considered switching a few times).

Not to be morbid, but using Pinboard is about as precarious a practice as using Magnolia was.

That rant about hosting already was a sign of trouble.

Pinboard rests on the shoulders of one developer, then the "hit by the bus" question becomes "hit by a tricycle" question.

How do you ensure longevity for a service like this?

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#62

Post by watmough »

sciurus wrote: post #20

That article needs to come with a huge "YMMV" disclaimer. I can still save my bookmarks via the bookmarklet. I can still view my bookmarks at http://delicious.com/sciurus . The transition hasn't impacted me at all.

So you've seen the mess they've made of the basic bookmarklet?

It's absolutely a complete joke. Do you want to separate your tags by comma??? WTF???

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#63

Post by drdaeman »

john2x wrote: post #27

I could have lived with the changes (by ignoring them), but now tags are basically useless. All my tags since the change have been a mess between tutorial/tutorials, book/books, etc. Any recommendations for alternatives? (I've already checked Pinboard but it has a sign-up fee)

While Pinboard has a (affordable, hey, it's just about ten bucks) signup fee, but I'd say it totally costs the money. The only thing I still miss from old Delicious is my network (people, not feature).

You can try Diigo or Zootool, though. They both seem pretty decent tools.

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#64

Post by drdaeman »

initself wrote: post #57
joshu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

changes are one thing. arbitrarily changing the tag separator from spaces to commas is entirely another.

Amen, brother. I'd really like to hear your take on the psychology of a mind that thinks changes like that that completely break APIs (Net::Delicious) is a good idea.

AVOS' new TOS specifically forbids any usage of the service by anything that falls outside of common web browser list and is not AVOS-provided software.

I was quite shocked about this condition when I read it.

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#65

Post by simon »

rryyan wrote: post #39
naner wrote: post #32

I am (was) a very heavy delicious user. Luckily, I backed up my delicious bookmarks a few weeks ago. The export function on the new site doesn't seem to work and if it does, I doubt all my bookmarks will be there. I started typing out a long laundry list of issues, but it doesn't matter. Suffice it to say the new site is nearly unusable. There is nothing new that is useful for users or that would attract new users, n…

I can offer a data point: I was able to export my data from the new delicious on tuesday (after noticing the changes) and then import it into a new pinboard account with no issues or anything missing (998 bookmarks and 2748 tags). maybe I was lucky!

Another data point. I have had no problem with my existing links (1697 of them that all seem to be present), exporting said links and have had no problems logging in or using my existing id and password.

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#66

Post by petercooper »

naner wrote: post #32

I am (was) a very heavy delicious user. Luckily, I backed up my delicious bookmarks a few weeks ago. The export function on the new site doesn't seem to work and if it does, I doubt all my bookmarks will be there. I started typing out a long laundry list of issues, but it doesn't matter. Suffice it to say the new site is nearly unusable. There is nothing new that is useful for users or that would attract new users, n…

I was an early Delicious user and have 7000ish bookmarks in there which I tend to frequently. I hadn't seen or experienced any significant reasons to leave yet. I can still tag stuff, still look up links by tags.. that's pretty much all I used it for anyway.

However, if export is broken/not going to work, that changes things a bit. While I do backup every few months, having no guarantee I can save future links almost invalidates the whole idea.

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#67

Post by petercooper »

watmough wrote: post #62
sciurus wrote: post #20

That article needs to come with a huge "YMMV" disclaimer. I can still save my bookmarks via the bookmarklet. I can still view my bookmarks at http://delicious.com/sciurus . The transition hasn't impacted me at all.

So you've seen the mess they've made of the basic bookmarklet? It's absolutely a complete joke. Do you want to separate your tags by comma??? WTF???

The Chrome extension's view hasn't changed, from what I can tell.

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#68

Post by unicornporn »

rryyan wrote: post #39
naner wrote: post #32

I am (was) a very heavy delicious user. Luckily, I backed up my delicious bookmarks a few weeks ago. The export function on the new site doesn't seem to work and if it does, I doubt all my bookmarks will be there. I started typing out a long laundry list of issues, but it doesn't matter. Suffice it to say the new site is nearly unusable. There is nothing new that is useful for users or that would attract new users, n…

I can offer a data point: I was able to export my data from the new delicious on tuesday (after noticing the changes) and then import it into a new pinboard account with no issues or anything missing (998 bookmarks and 2748 tags). maybe I was lucky!

I guess you were lucky, or I might be very unlucky. I think the problem might be I have close to 20.000 bookmarks, most of them neatly organized and tagged. The export chokes after a minute or so and just shows a blank page. Grabbing via the API (using curl or WGET) gives me a very incomplete dump.

Last export I did was earlier this summer. I never imagined they'd screw up so bad. Now they don't even reply to my e-mails.

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#69

Post by unicornporn »

wyclif wrote: post #24
tptacek wrote: post #14

Good time to be Pinboard! I'm sympathetic to the "real names only" terms that some services run under, but for a bookmark sharing service that policy provides no end-user value. This is a service I think you should pay money for, instead of allowing yourself to be the product the company is selling to others.

Does anyone really doubt that Pinboard is the true heir of del.icio.us? I think payment is really a core part of the DNA of their service, because it allows Maciej to make it reliable-- exactly what is needed in a bookmarking/tagging utility on the web.

Seems like a good alternative. Only thing that keeps me away is that the design is so darn painful. I have nothing minimalist design, as long as it is not a excuse to get away with bad design. White space is so messed up, menus collide with each other, tag clouds float out into the margins. To me the site is an UX catastrophe. But as with most things, I guess I can get used to it.

It's not like the new Delicious feels more tempting. I will also give Diigo a try this weekend.

Re: AVOS’ Delicious Disaster: Lessons from a Complete Failure

#70

Post by aespinoza »

cpeterso wrote: post #47
aespinoza wrote: post #8

I think this needs a little more thought. Think about this: Delicious doesn't really have a successful business model (if any). Yahoo! was about to kill it. Now AVOS picks it up. Why would a startup pick it up? There is no way they can make a successful business out of the current state of the site. But Delicious does have one thing: a big set of users and their bookmarks. Information. It is obvious that AVOS was goi…

Why did Yahoo! buy Delicious in the first place? I assumed Yahoo! would use Delicious' links and tags to cleverly augment their search engine ranking. I realize now that I was giving Yahoo! too much credit.

The original idea was just that. But Yahoo! doesn't have direction. Even if they had a CEO, the company was just not focused enough on anything. First they said they wanted to be a search engine, then they moved to content and search...

Now they don't even have a search engine now, they use bing. They say they are a content and media company, but I don't really use any of their services other than delicious and sometimes the email, and I don't know anybody who does.

I think when they bought Delicious, it was a great idea because the company had direction and Delicious made sense. Over the years they lost focus, and have been just wandering around. They don't make sense.

Post reply on HN