Yahoo Finds Delicious Buyer

Yahoo is selling off its delicious social bookmarking site, after nearly five years of ownership.

Technology startup AVOS, founded by YouTube founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, is acquiring delicious for an undisclosed sum from Yahoo. Hurley and Chen sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion in October of 2006.

“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 in a statement.

AVOS has pledged to help grow and expand delicious to enable users to, “discover the web’s tastiest content.”

Yahoo acquired delicious (originally known as del.icio.us) in December of 2005. In recent years, Yahoo has struggled with keeping delicious open and announced their intention to find a new owner for the site in late 2010.

Yahoo sent out notices to delicious users yesterday notifying them of the new ownership change.

“To continue using Delicious, you must agree to let Yahoo! transfer your bookmarks to AVOS,” Yahoo stated in its email to users. “After a transition period and after your bookmarks are transferred, you will be subject to the AVOS terms of service and privacy policy.”

Yahoo added that Delicious in its current form will be available until approximately July 2011. If a user does not transfer their bookmarks to AVOS before then, Yahoo warns that the users will no longer be able to use their existing Delicious accounts and will not have access to your existing bookmarks or account information.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.