Yahoo sells Delicious for $5 million?

One of six Yahoo services planned to be 'sunset,' the best one might get sold

 
Yahoo has sold social bookmarking site Delicious for $5 million, according to an unnamed source close to The Next Web. The sale has not yet been confirmed by Yahoo.
 
If it’s true, however, the news surprises nobody.

The Web made a big fuss back in December 2010 when an internal Yahoo products webcast leaked, revealing that Delicious was among a number of other services that Yahoo was preparing to “sunset.” The sunset is the end of the day, after all, so people interpreted the news as proof that Yahoo was simply closing the service, forcing five million users to find new social bookmarking digs.

In reality, it makes much more sense for a company suffering so much as Yahoo to try to make a little cash on the site before giving it up entirely. The company originally acquired Delicious back in 2005 for somewhere between $15 million and $30 million, so it’s not too serious a loss if the $5 million price point reported is confirmed.

Yahoo has not denied the reports, but its response is as generic as it gets:

Hello-

We don’t comment on rumor or speculation.

As we have said in the past, we are actively thinking about the future of Delicious and believe there is a home outside the company that would make more sense for the service, our users and our shareholders.

The other companies mentioned in December to be “sunset” by Yahoo include MyBlogLog, Yahoo Picks, AltaVista, Yahoo Bookmarks and Yahoo Buzz. Of these, there hasn’t been much word, except for MyBlogLog. Yahoo announced at the end of February that it would be shutting down the social updates aggregator on May 24.

Layoffs, sunsets, unimpressive stock; it’s been rough times for Yahoo. But it’s not over yet. By slimming down the company, in terms of both workforce and product, CEO Carol Bartz may yet have a trick for restoring Yahoo to its former glory. We just don’t know what it is.