By Julie Bort, Network World |

Google snags Delicious founder

Looks like Google's doing some actual hiring in addition to all those temp worker layoffs. TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb both say they've confirmed that Joshua Schachter, creator of the social bookmarking service Delicious, is now working at Google as a member of its technical staff. And that has everyone wondering -- what could be the master plan for him at Google?

Schachter's new status was first reported in a Twitter tweet by venture capitalist Josh Koppleman. Eventually, TechCrunch noticed Schachter's new Google affiliation was added to his LinkedIn profile, and then Schachter himself confirmed the rumor. The Delicious founder went to Yahoo when that company acquired the bookmarking service three years ago. He was required to spend two years at Yahoo, but left once that time period expired and has been on his own for six months now.

While ReadWriteWeb notes that in that time he, along with Andy Baio built "one of the coolest Greasemonkey scripts" its ever seen (called Memeorandum Colors), there's very little info on what Schachter will be focusing on at Google. TechCrunch's guess?

"Creating automatic bookmarks based on surfing history? Or perhaps he is going to move beyond social bookmarks to help with social search.

The latter is more probable, now that Google has launched its Friend Connect service and seems to be focusing on the social networking realm a bit more heavily. In any event, it looks like a good move for both Google and Schachter.

* * *

Like this post? Visit the Google Subnet home page for more news, blogs and podcasts.