Comments on: Avoiding Microsoft+Yahoo!

Question: Avoiding Microsoft+Yahoo!

quarterframer — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:46:16 -0800

If MS buys Yahoo, where should I take my del.icio.us and flickr accounts to?

For those of you who prefer to avoid anything related to Microsoft whenever possible, have you thought about where you might take your Yahoo! services in the event that MS successfully acquires Yahoo!?

I've looked through old posts and found some tips on various services, but in light of current events I thought this might be an opportune time to ask anew.

I'm specifically interested in recommendations to where I might migrate my del.icio.us and flickr accounts to.

I've been looking at some more obvious options like ma.gnolia and Picasa but it would be great to hear your experiences of migrating (if you've already done it) or what else is worth considering.

Bonus points for non-Google products. I already enjoy Gmail and Google Calendar but I prefer not to have all my eggs in one ibasket.

(No offense intended to those who enjoy MS products and services, I just prefer not to use them, thanks).

By: wackybrit

wackybrit — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:53:03 -0800

As soon as I heard, I decided I'll be rolling my own del.icio.us clone (the alternatives really are nowhere near as good), but possibly migrating my photos to Smugmug, which comes on the recommendation of quite a few people.

By: razorian

razorian — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:54:01 -0800

I don't know about del.icio.us but for me zoomr works just fine as a replacement for Flickr. (I changed because for me Flickr became too slow.)

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:34:35 -0800

Instead of Flickr you could use 23.

By: Gerard Sorme

Gerard Sorme — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:36:50 -0800

I would hope Microsoft wouldn't tinker too much with del.icio.us and Flickr. But, we're talking Microsoft, so anything is possible. I actually use a lot of Yahoo products and am not excited about the possibility of this happening. Without exaggerating, Microsoft has ONE product that I love - OneNote. Aside from that one piece of software, I'm not excited about their products. BTW, I would also miss Yahoo's MyWeb, which is like del.icio.us but caches the page in case the site you have bookmarked ever disappears.

By: MadamM

MadamM — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:56:49 -0800

One of the commentaries I read today suggested that Microsoft might sell off Flickr and del.icio.us. So don't necessarily move your stuff right now.

By: puddleglum

puddleglum — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:00:24 -0800

zooomr. Three O's (razo got the link right but spelled it wrong). It's obnoxious, but there it is.

By: crush-onastick

crush-onastick — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:08:39 -0800

Smugmug has a HUGE security hole which fails to protect images which designate "private".

By: fleeba

fleeba — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:13:58 -0800

Well, doing it yourself would be the ultimate, future-proof option (ie. an alternate being purchased by MS or Google). Get a web server, domain name, and either build or download a photo gallery and link app. You could use a CMS like Symphony or Textpattern to manage both photos and links (and everything else too).

By: Hildago

Hildago — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 19:30:17 -0800

Wait until something bad happens to these applications before switching.

By: evariste

evariste — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:00:57 -0800

zooomr positions itself as a direct Flickr competitor, so I'm thinking that's your answer.

By: afx114

afx114 — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 23:59:09 -0800

Google's Picasa, while not as featured or "2.0" as Flickr, has a lot of potential.

By: chrisamiller

chrisamiller — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:17:48 -0800

Gruber thinks (quite rightly, IMO) that what MS is really interested in is the search and advertising of Yahoo. It's quite possible that they'd sell or spin off flickr and delicious.

By: Z303

Z303 — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 05:22:14 -0800

If you want to go the self hosted route, I deployed scuttle as part of our Intranet at work and it seems to work fine, it support the del.icio.us API but I've not tried using it so no idea how good the support is. Its got a few quirks but no show stoppers.

By: bkudria

bkudria — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 10:51:19 -0800

Ma.gnolia.com is a excellent alternative to del.icio.us, and it will even import all your old del.icio.us bookmarks.

By: timepiece

timepiece — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:10:34 -0800

I love Netvouz for bookmarks. Tags and folders, checks for duplicates and broken links.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 18:22:19 -0800

chrisamiller writes "that what MS is really interested in is the search and advertising of Yahoo. It's quite possible that they'd sell or spin off flickr and delicious."

Has MS ever sold off an unwanted section of their empire? I don't remember even a single instance.

By: adamrice

adamrice — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 11:05:21 -0800

Mitheral: Bungie.

By: brandnew

brandnew — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:40:37 -0800

I've always been amazed that there weren't more sites out there like del.icio.us. Sure, there are other social bookmarking sites, but I'm not aware of any that do the tagging thing so effortlessly. Does Yahoo! own some sort of patent on the technology?

By: quarterframer

quarterframer — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 19:04:08 -0800

Belated thanks all. I'll be watching and waiting. But if it looks like MS is going to make a successful bid, I will probably go ma.gnolia or Netvouz and Picasa. I'm not gonna wait around for MS to sell/"improve"/neglect either one...