Yahoo! Sees Del.icio.us Future - Will Success Spoil Del.icio.us?
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Jeremy Zawodny, an engineer in Yahoo!'s search group, said on a Yahoo! company blog after the acquisition that "Just like we've done with Flickr, we plan to give del.icio.us the resources, support, and room it needs to continue growing the service and community." Joshua Schachter wrote of the acquisition in the del.icio.us company blog that "Together we'll continue to improve how people discover, remember and share on the Internet, with a big emphasis on the power of community....I look forward to continuing my vision of social and community memory, and taking it to the next level with the del.icio.us community and Yahoo!"
The reaction to the acquisition in the del.icio.us community itself, however, has been wildly mixed. Schachter's blog post inspired hundreds of comments from users. Some are wildly ecstatic about the move; others are in deep despair. For example, many users are afraid that Yahoo! will alter the service in ways that will make them stop wanting to use it.
Most users fall somewhere in between on their view of the purchase. They are uncertain about the future of del.icio.us as a part of Yahoo! Will Yahoo! throw banners ads up all over their beloved website? Will del.icio.us users be forced to obtain a Yahoo! id in order to keep using the service? Will the comfortable, easy-to-use interface be changed by the search engine giant?
More to the point, some users are concerned, despite the apparent reassurance from Zawodny and Schachter, that innovation will slow down at del.icio.us as the company has to deal with the general corporate bureaucracy at Yahoo! Another concern expressed by some users is that, as more people use del.icio.us and the service becomes more "democratic," the actual quality of the content will go down. At the very least, it is possible that a flood of less technologically-oriented users to the service will push out current users, thus changing the general nature of the community.
Search Engine News 
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