First there was the leaked Yahoo! slide that listed the status of del.icio.us as "sunset". The delicious team were among those laid off by Yahoo. Then the tech-blogosphere went nuts. I know I retweeted the news.
The sense of incredulity and indignation was best summed up in a Tweet by Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies): US: You own 2 GIANTS of social media & Web 2.0YHOO: I like email
U: Um. Gmail already won
Y: I like email
U: Is this a bot?
Y: I like email A day later, and there was a suspicious post to the delicious blog that . . . well . . . you can read it for yourself. I say suspicious because I didn't see how the post squared with either the leaked slide or the terminations going on within Yahoo. Frankly, since none of the other products getting the sunset deal are being sold, this smacked more of corporate BS than it did of truth.
Today there is a report from Abraham Hyatt and Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb that outlines the fail within Yahoo that lead to this, and they conclude: "Is Yahoo really going to try to sell off a system that contains private data to another company after it is rumored to have fired all the people who knew how to operate it? Unlikely." Read the complete ReadWriteWeb post.
Sadly, the delicious ride isn't over; but I think I'm getting off just the same. Think I'll be leaving the Yahoo amusement park entirely out of loathing and disgust. I mean, really?!? How long before flickr gets the heave-ho from Yahoo's sinking ship?