I was very disappointed to hear the rumors yesterday that delicious bookmarks were to be no more. I don’t know what this really mean for Delicious and all of it’s users exactly. I would think that there’s still some money to be made from this site. Anyway, rather than wait to see the day when I can’t save my book marks, I thought I would take the time to find an alternative.

My criteria for finding my next bookmarking tool were as follows:

• Was it free? I don’t like spending my money
• Was it cluttered? I hate seeing ads everywhere
• Nice user interface
• How mobile is it? I want to make sure I have them everywhere I go

I narrowed my search to a hand full of alternatives. The following is a list of other services I considered with reasons why I decided not to commit.

• Google Bookmarks
  This probably would have been my first choice but my Gmail account tied to my Google account is messed up and Google provides no way to change it. It’s really been a soar spot for me when it comes to Google services in general. Plus, I would have to install some bulky toolbar in Firefox. Sorry Google, I just need a little bit of space.
• Pinboard.in
  Almost jumped on board with this, It was $8.10 when I wrote this. The pressure was killing me, and I’ve learned to never do things under pressure. Plus if you look at the fine print, some of the services coast $25 dollars a year.
• Zootool
  They don’t even work right now. The rumors where too much for there servers to handle. Say’s a lot about a the people who run it too me. Won’t even bother.
• Diigo
  They have an impressive set of features but I didn’t like the clutter. It can get kinda pricey too.

AND THE WINNER IS
After a couple of hours of research, I bookmarked what might be my last bookmark on delicious. I’ve settled on Xmarks. Why, there’s no clutter. There’s no ads that I can see right away and if I want to upgrade, the cost is minimal. The tools fit nicely in the browser and are available for all the browsers I use. In the end, I feel good about my purchase because I haven’t spent any money yet.

Hope this helps somebody make a decision.

[UPDATE]

After only a few hours my Firefox bookmark database got corrupt. I’m not blaming Xmarks, but in desperation I quickly opened a Pinboard account for $8.31.

[UPDATE]

Delicious isn’t going anywhere, it’s the best out there so I probably won’t be going anywhere. You can check out there blog here