Delicious Being Shut Down by Yahoo!?

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Delicious (formerly del.icio.us) is my favorite social bookmarking system. It’s simple and unassuming. It’s also one of the first web apps that used tags for organizing content. But there are recent speculations that Delicious is being shutdown by its owner, Yahoo!

The service started small, and started gaining momentum when “Web 2.0″ first became popular. Since acquired by Yahoo!, the big Y has tried integrating Delicious into its other services, such as a common login system. However, Delicious has largely stayed more or less the same, in terms of interface.

A recent screenshot leaked by a former Yahoo! employee might suggest that Delicious is among Yahoo!’s “sunset” services, along with Buzz, Yahoo! Picks, AllTheWeb, AltaVista, MyBlogLog and Yahoo! Bookmarks. “Sunset” items are those that are planned for discontinuing over time.

Delicious users are upset about the supposed plan to axe the service and tweeted their dissent. Yahoo!, meanwhile, issued a statement.

We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate

Yahoo! is trying to streamline its services, and is said to be moving away from bookmarking and tagging. Will it focus on email? Forums? Content aggregation? We will see. But as a Delicious user, I’d hate to lose bookmarks and networked friends built over five years or so.