Finding Alternatives to Delicious

Delicious, an excellent bookmarking service currently owned by Yahoo!, is an important part of my research process. While in the collecting phase, I use Delicious to tag interesting websites and documents that I need to go back and review at a later date. This allows me to use either Google or Google Scholar to rapidly search and tag documents without getting to engrossed in the details of individual articles.

To illustrate how powerful Delicious tags can be, here are a few lists I have created over the last couple of years as I researched various topics:

• Faculty Barriers to the Adoption of Distance Learning
• Church Ministries and Distance Learning
• Emerging Instructional Technologies
• Joomla Tips, Sites, Resources
• Switching from Windows to Mac Tips & Resources
• Model Churches
• Moodle Tips, Sites, Resources
• Review of “The Shack”

Adding sites to Delicious is a simple keystroke in Firefox [Ctrl-D]. The user interface allows you to quickly tag the page, make a note about its significance (or copy a paragraph from the page to jog your memory), even share your bookmark via Twitter.

Unfortunately, Yahoo announced earlier this month their intention to sell Delicious. [The original buzz on the blogosphere was that Delicious was simply going to go away. Fortunately, this proved to be a false rumor.]

Alternatives to Delicious

Still, this realization that a critical part of my workflow is facing an uncertain future led me on a quest for a potential replacement. Here are the prospects as of today:

1. Diigo. Diigo is a mature social bookmarking, highlighting, note-taking, collaboration site that performs many of the same functions as Delicious. Seizing on the opportunity to capture new users looking for a replacement for Delicious, Diigo wisely provides a “Transition from Delicious to Diigo – Instruction & FAQ” page. Diigo is free.
2. Evernote. I am a big fan of Evernote and use this application on Windows, Mac OS, iPad, and Android platforms. Evernote is a great archive for all of your digital documents. It is the critical part of my paperless workflow. As much as I like Evernote, I don’t see it as a viable replacement for Delicious. One of the best features of Delicious is its simplicity, and in my opinion, Evernote would add levels of complexity that would defeat the purpose of rapid collection of online resources. Like Diigo, Evernote provides a simple process on their blog to make the transition from Delicious to Evernote. Evernote has both a paid and free version, and the free version is more than adequate for my needs.
3. Google Bookmarks. With Google sitting as king of the hill when it comes to search engines, it only makes sense that Google Bookmarks would be a viable alternative to Delicious. Tagging sites with Google Bookmarks can be as simple as clicking on the little star next to your search results. Google Bookmarks allows users to create and share lists, and plays well with other Google services like Google Maps, Gmail, Docs, etc.. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t provide instructions on making the transition from Delicious, although there are several recent articles on the web. Google Bookmarks is free.
4. Historious. I’m not familiar with Historious, but it appears to offer many of the features available through Delicious. Unfortunately (for me) this service is not free, and that knocks it out of contention. (You can get a free account that allows up to 300 bookmarks. The paid account is $19.95 per year and gives unlimited access to the service.)
5. Pinboard. The final contender in today’s roundup of Delicious replacements is Pinboard. As with Historious, I am not personally familiar with Pinboard, although it does receive some decent reviews. Pinboard provides a side-by-side comparison with Delicious if you need some help making a decision. Like Historious, there is a charge to use this service, so that knocks it out of contention for me.

I will update you on the final results of my search to find a good alternative to Delicious. Do you have recommendations as alternatives to Delicious?