YouTube founders look to salvage Delicious from Yahoo scrap heap

Two of the men behind YouTube are looking to revive ailing social media service Delicious.

Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have announced their intention to purchase the bookmark-sharing site from current owner Yahoo. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Both sides are planning a gradual handover to help facilitate the transition, and users will be asked to re-enter login information between now and July as data is transferred from Yahoo's systems to those of the new company.

Delicious said that users should see little to no disruption during the transition, other than the need to transfer their information from the Yahoo servers. Following the handover, Delicious will become part of Hurley and Chen's new venture, AVOS.

"We're excited to work with this fantastic community and take Delicious to the next level," said Hurley. "We see a tremendous opportunity to simplify the way users save and share content they discover anywhere on the web."

Hurley and Chen have a history of fostering social media sites. The pair helped to launch YouTube in 2005, eventually creating the largest video-sharing service on the web and selling the site to Google for $1.65bn.

The handover looks to put an end to speculation about the fate of Delicious. Acquired by Yahoo in 2005, the service has been among the properties considered for the chopping block, as Yahoo has sought to narrow its focus and shed secondary products and services.