del.icio.us: undisputed free-tag bookmark king

No-one will catch del.icio.us for free-tag bookmarking now. The eco-system effect of myriad tagging sites, such as this one, offering import/export from/to del.icio.us features in order to lower their own barrier to entry, along with all the content sites with "add to del.icio.us" badges, is set to afford del.icio.us a massively powerful network effect lock-in.

Free-tagging has become commoditised, yet the weird logic of the web allows del.icio.us to use their first mover advantage to leverage diverse, distributed free-tag bookmarking services to provide an aggregate, gold-standard über service.

And remember, this is not just about the raw bookmark data, it's about the explicit connections users make between their accounts in del.icio.us and other services: that effect cannot be automated, only fostered through trust-based co-opetitive service ecosystems such as the one del.icio.us now sits plum in the centre of, the free-tag bookmark ecosystem.

Good for them—the first and still the best for simple, generic bookmark free-tagging.

UPDATE: just saw on B2DAY blog that del.icio.us tripled their registered userbase in the last nine months to pass the one million mark.

Technorati Tags: delicious, network_effect