Enough.
Using Kickstarter, we will start a massive fund-raising effort that with the express purpose of forming a cash offer for obtaining all Delicious code, user data, branding, IP, etc. from Yahoo! Inc.
If the purchase is successful, Delicious will be reformed as a nonprofit, charitable organization not unlike Wikimedia/Mozilla, with the express purpose of continuing to provide the services that Delicious already provides, as well as upholding the promise of keeping its visitor’s data safe, innovation constant, and its core-values in check. It will be operated by a knowledgeable board of directors, and its course will be directed by the thousands of user donations, grants, and other fund-raising efforts it will need to stay alive.
I mean no offense to Delicious founder Joshua Schachter with this idea. I respect the man immensely and I do not see his decision to sell Delicious to Yahoo! as a mistake. Given the same opportunity, I would have probably done the same thing back then.
But now, Delicious’ very purpose is threatened by a company that is failing in every way to recognize the significance of what they bought back in 2005. To respond to this, your choices right now are either to leave Delicious, re-write Delicious, or let your bookmarks dwindle and then die at Yahoo!. Unfortunately, all of these options are selfish, and discard the greater idea that Delicious can stil be the ultimate socialized index of the web, has a purpose greater than just making a few bucks, and needs its contributors faith and participation to complete that mission.
So, our last option is to speak Yahoo!’s language, and pay the price.
Yes, I realize this is totally insane. The price is undoubtedly in the millions. The chances Yahoo! will accept our offer are slim to none. Kickstarter may not support something to this scale. There probably thousands of eccentricities and gotchas involved in even executing a deal like this. I can’t really think of anyone who has ever actually bought back a website from a company. But if the slow demise of Yahoo! shows us anything, it shows us that there is no precedent on the web.
Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
It needs some rewriting anyway, to make it more Twitter-like, flickr-like, and HypeMachine-like. I vote re-write… but I agree this is an important debate.
i think there is some precedent for this:
* webshots was bought back by the founders
* i believe webrings was bought back from yahoo
* stumbleupon was bought back from ebay by the founders
We should try to get New Museum / Rhizome.org since they’ve been such big proponents of internet-based art around delish…
or maybe archive.org ? This is going to take a lot of money.
id throw some money down
more twitter like? christ almighty…
anyway, i’ll totally spend my weed money on this.
RJBS already made a clone of delicious called Rubric.
* You can see it in action at http://rjbs.manxome.org/rubric
* The source is on CPAN – http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/Rubric-0.144/
Yea, there are several good clones. Pinboard is another one. But Delicious is more than just it’s software that makes it up at this point.
Would Yahoo! ever sell it? I’m afraid the answer is no.
nda
I love the sentiment, but it’s definitely far beyond a community fundraising effort. Unless you can think of a way to raise eight figures, it’s off the table. And it’s particular poorly-suited for Kickstarter, since you’re raising money for an unknown sum and would have to refund everyone somehow when negotiations fail.
If you’re serious about this, I’d recommend approaching Yahoo before kicking off fundraising and document the process.
Kickstarter as a viable buyback plan notwithstanding – the best extraction option, IMHO, is to buy back the data and rewrite the software. Not that there’s not good work there, but it’s entangled with a lot of Yahoo! tech and infrastructure that you’d spend a long time excising.
Beyond pinboard.in, the next best bet is to pick a self-hosted clone package and make it federate. Then, work hard to make it catch up to the last 3-4 years worth of social software developments missed (eg. kind of what Jorn said)
Of course on the other hand, I wonder if a loud enough noise would make someone at Y! wonder what was this delicious thing and why anyone cared about it? Naah…
Thanks for your comments, everyone. If anything, I’m happy to see that this idea resonates with people besides me, even if it is probably both financially and technically impossible. As Les said, perhaps just making enough noise could get Y!s attention, which might be good.
Chris Whipple predicts Google Reader is eating delicious’s lunch (?!) and as I explore its sharing options I’m starting to agree.