Del.icio.us to Glob On To Social Networking Trend

Posted on October 5, 2006

Read/Write Web reports that del.icio.us is planning to add more social networking features beyond the existing your network feature.

I recently interviewed del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter, who is now with Yahoo after the popular social bookmarking service was acquired last December. Joshua was recently named as top innovator of the year by MIT Technology Review Magazine. Tagging is one example of an innovation that del.icio.us pioneered (at least in its current form). Joshua told me that "del.icio.us was the first app to showcase tagging" and that now "practically everyone uses tags in the [del.icio.us] system in some form."
But Joshua has bigger plans for del.icio.us - it will essentially turn into a social network, with more focus on people instead of data.

Joshua Schachter told Read/Write Web that "I want to help people connect with others within the system, either to people they already know or discovering new people and communities based on interest."

These days everything is turning into a social network or adding social networking features. It is reminiscent of the time period several years ago when every website was adding community features. The community concept is interesting to some web users but we must keep in mind the 1% rule that indicates most people simply want to view the content and not interact with it or meet other people who are also looking at it.