The founders of video-sharing site YouTube have bought bookmarking service Delicious from Yahoo. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen will use Delicious as a key part of their next net venture called Avos. Delicious, once considered one of the most promising Web 2.0 services, was owned by Yahoo, which recently decided to sell it or close it down.

Delicious describes itself as a social bookmarking system in which members flag and tag sites, articles and media they find interesting. These can then be shared with other Delicious users.

Delicious was acquired in 2005 by Yahoo and in late 2010 the web giant decided to sell it off or close it down if no buyer came forward. Now Mr Hurley and Mr Chen have acquired Delicious to form part of the technology underpinning their new firm Avos.

Details about Avos and what it will do are scant. A statement from Chad Hurley following the Delicious acquisition said the company will aim to help people manage the information gushing from the web services they use.

"We see a tremendous opportunity to simplify the way users save and share content they discover anywhere on the web," Mr Hurley said.

The pair sold YouTube to Google in 2006 for $1.76bn (£1.06bn). Steve Chen left YouTube in 2008 and Mr Hurley quit working for Google in late 2010.