DELICIOUS RELAUNCHES

Last night saw the relaunch of Delicious, the little bookmarking site that helped inspire a wave of social companies in the eight years since it was founded. New owners Chad Hurley and Steve Chen (aka the creators of YouTube) have ported Delicious over from previous owner Yahoo and are ready to show their first revision to the public. Expectations aren’t terrifically high for the new Delicious, given the rareness of tech comeback stories and the fact that Delicious was never really that popular. But we can’t help but watch given Hurley and Chen’s magic touch at YouTube.

The new Delicious retains a lot of visual elements from the old site, but it tweaks the core user activity to be creating “stacks” of content. In an interview late Monday, Hurley compared stacks to YouTube playlists, saying he thinks the way to go mainstream is by enabling users to express their interests. The new Delicious can be found at www.delicious.com

YOUTUBE FOUNDERS BUY DELICIOUS FROM YAHOO

YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have agreed to purchase Delicious from Yahoo. Hurley and Chen’s company, AVOS, will be the new owner of the service, and Yahoo has promised to keep Delicious up and working until about July, when user information is then turned over to AVOS. What AVOS plans to do with Delicious is up in the air, but it’s doubtful they’ll make many changes immediately. Yahoo says they’ll turn over public and private bookmarks and user information to AVOS when the change is complete and AVOS will re-launch Delicious shortly after.

Users who don’t want their data moved or shared with another party will have the ability to opt out. Yahoo will present each user with AVOS’ terms of service prior to the changeover, and users who don’t agree will not be able to access their bookmarks or use the service, but AVOS won’t have access to their data either.

DELICIOUS BEING SOLD FOR $1-$2 MILLION

Yahoo is about to close a deal to sell bookmarking site Delicious for $1-$2 million, says a source familiar with the discussions. The source isn't sure what company is buying it, but says it's a "strategic partner," something like StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon just raised a fresh $17 million round, so it could easily afford Delicious.

Yahoo's plan to get rid of Delicious leaked in December. The reason the sale is taking so long is Delicious infrastructure is entirely reliant on Yahoo technology. Yahoo has been taking Delicious off its infrastructure for a number of months.

The source says Delicious has zero monetization, but it's one of the most highly regarded products at Yahoo. People are very loyal to the product, and Yahoo says it's the most widely used internal property at Yahoo.

The code name for the sale is "Project Dragon," and our source says the deal could close as soon as next week.