Why isn't Del.icio.us Better Software

So today I got a delicious account and started importing some of my bookmarks from various other services. Quite quickly I became annoyed that the workflow seemed to be quite indirect. The first feature I should would be important was something like is found in email tagging and management software like gmail, in which one can check messages that one wants to effect. I think it is really stupid that there is not a basic set of batch tools in the standard interface. Especially after I have just imported 850 links and there are a fair few more to come. 

Secondly I found the response time in search and tag finding so slow. Surely they could make this a lot faster and potentially even do it as a Google Suggest like feature. The website is designed around such a specific use model, surely they could optimise the experience a bit more. 

Another thing that made me queasy was the lack of an in window solution for storing other peoples links. I think this is such crap. They could auto fill a number of the fields and just have a little pop over using ajax.

For now the last think I will complain about is the social aspect of the service. It really dose not feel social. It feels like being in a operators room from phone services of the past. I say this because in the standard view, the one were you do editing and building of your link base, there is very little social information. The only context given is how many people have also selected a given item. I think they could include more, for instance common tags on items with colour or size representing how common those tags were for those items.  Another method would be to have some kind of indicator of how related a given link, tag, or stored link, is to you and your community. 

In any case though, I really think they have not done a great job at making this service sing. I will continue using it and perhaps realise that everything I have said here is wrong. If you think so please tell me so in the comments. My Del.icio.us user name is Metophile as usual.

In other news, one of the groups I am working for at the moment is starting a consumer geared laser marking and manufacture service. We think iPods and so forth are a good starting point. Leave comments if you have any requests or ideas, we are testing things out currently.