Users can subscribe via RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds that are delivered to an external news reader or via del.icio.us' own internal system, in which notifications appear in what is called the user personal inbox.
Moreover, each link contains a list of every user who has bookmarked it, so users can view who has bookmarked a link.
Del.icio.us is structured in a way that compels users to browse others' lists, and discover pages they wouldn't have otherwise found.
In short: Del.icio.us users are an online community, joined by their desire to share links to Web pages they like and find useful.
"People are able to remember things they come across without a lot of wait or effort and share them with other people, generate RSS feeds and let other people see what they are looking at," Schachter says.
After launching del.icio.us in September 2003, and for all of 2004, Schachter ran it in his spare time, while working full time as a quantitative analyst at Morgan Stanley. Then in March of this year, he announced via a del.icio.us discussion group that he had decided to resign from his job and devote himself full time to his pet project.
In April, Schachter announced that he had indeed left his job and that, in order to work full time at del.icio.us, he had accepted outside investors, yielding a minority stake to them.
The group of investors is led by Union Square Ventures and includes Amazon.com Inc., as well as industry luminaries such as Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, former ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) chairwoman Esther Dyson, and Tim O'Reilly, chief executive and founder of the O'Reilly computer book publishing house.
Now comes the next challenge for Schachter -- evolving del.icio.us from the popular side project it has been into a strong online service that appeals to the masses.
At the moment, Schachter and his team aren't worrying too much about marketing or coming up with ways of generating revenue. One thing Schachter is sure of is that there will not be subscription fees for del.icio.us, which is a free service.
Currently, Schachter and the five employees of the small private company based in New York City are intensely focused on revamping del.icio.us' user experience.
"We're working on the user interface and making the stuff more accessible to everybody," he says. "We're transitioning from a product I built without any particular user interface expertise to something developed by people who are better at that."
Focusing on this is the right way to go, says Gartner's Weiner. "A big next step for del.icio.us is certainly to extend its user base, and to grow organically you need a simpler interface -- that is crucial," Weiner says.
Users, then, can expect to see regular improvements to del.icio.us over the coming 12 months, Schachter says. For example, Schachter and his team are working to add privacy features to the service, to let users create groups with whom to share their bookmarks, and likewise limit access to their lists. Today, anyone can see anyone else's list of links.
Since Schachter considers del.icio.us a service that complements blogs, social networks and RSS news aggregators, he says it's likely that partnership deals are on the horizon for del.icio.us, without speculating further.
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