In the wake of layoffs, Yahoo has decided to discontinue the social bookmark service delicious.com. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the news was leaked via Twitter (of course) when a Yahoo employee posted an image of an internal presentation. TechRadar has suggestions for alternatives, some available free of charge, others for a fee. At least a few people have suggested that Yahoo make Delicious open source so others can continue to maintain it.

One on hand, the end of Delicious is a reminder that one risk of using proprietary technologies: sometimes they go away, and with short notice. On the other hand, I wonder to what extent people use social bookmarking, especially in education, and especially socially. Any thoughts?

Update: Yahoo plans on selling Delicious instead of shutting it down.