End of the Road for Xmarks

2m users * 1% conversion rate * $10/yr = $100k = probably not enough for a VC-backed startup.

My suspicion is that because users just used the browser's internal bookmarks they couldn't easily add affordances that would draw attention, leaving no surface on which to advertise. I guess this is one advantage that delicious had, although breaking the bookmarking paradigm to do so was very painful in other ways.

I no longer believe startups who claim their value proposition is "the data will be really valuable someday."

That would be $200k, but still not enough to make your conclusion any different.

Yep "probably not enough for a VC-backed startup" is the key here. This would have been a nice bootstrapped business. For them taking VC put them on a road that unfortunately wasn't the right one for them and forced them to swing for a bigger outcome than was possible. Sad.

How does delicious make money? I love your product and use it almost every day, but it's not immediately obvious to me that there's any advertising.

$100k is an ok number for a one-person outfit, but it would be hard to support even one employee on that number.

In face, their current model of altering the Google SERPs almost certainly generates more revenue.

oops. indeed.

Years ago, I bookmarked expansively. I found I never used most of the bookmarks and many of the bit-rotted silently so that, when I did try to follow a bookmark, it no longer worked.

I found googling worked better than maintaining personal bookmarks, so Google has become my "bookmark" service.