On June 19, Joshua Schachter, the founder of del.icio.us, decided to resign from Yahoo. Why did he leave and what does it mean for del.icio.us?

When explaining why he left, Schachter says to Techcrunch that “I was largely sidelined by the decisions of my management. […] It was an incredibly frustrating experience […].”

He doesn’t divulge more than that, but here’s what we know about the fate of del.icio.us since it was acquired by Yahoo back in 2005.

A world class product

Del.icio.us was among the first social bookmarking services to see the light of day. At the time it was acquired by Yahoo, it was a very exciting product. It was the leading social bookmarking tool with a large and active community and lots of cool tools to save and exchange bookmarks.

With all the tags and relational links that del.icio.us users have added over the years, it’s still a very interesting product.

Mark Evans thinks it could be a star search product, a Google killer. And why not? It already has the community and the index of a world class human powered search engine.

Del.icio.us is wilting on the vine

After joining the Yahoo family back in 2005, Schachter wrote in the del.icio.us blog: “I look forward to continuing my vision of social and community memory, and taking it to the next level with the del.icio.us community and Yahoo!”.

Since then, nothing much has happened. The only notable improvements have been add-ons for Firefox and Internet Explorer, a Facebook app, improved help pages, more usable settings, network badges, and you personal network (according to the del.icio.us blog).

The keen reader will notice that most of these improvements are not changes to the product itself, but rather new ways to integrate it with other services.

And it gets worse: In early September 2007, del.icio.us broke the news that they had been working for some months on a redesign of the site, including a new look and feel, new and faster search engine and lots of new features.

Since then no mention has been made by del.icio.us or Yahoo of this new version that was hailed by Techcrunch as a major upgrade, a del.icio.us 2.0.

What does it mean?

The fate of del.icio.us since its acquisition combined with Schachter’s statement about how he was sidelined by the Yahoo management, it seems a natural explanation that he is unsatisfied with the way they’ve treated the potential gold mine he brought to the company.

But Schachter isn’t the only one leaving Yahoo. In fact, since January 2008, more than 60 executives have left Yahoo. Some goes as far as to say Yahoo’s executive structure is crumbling and that the company has lost its way.

Danny Sullivan has a different take on the story. He reminds us that Yahoo is still number two in the search engine race and that, unlike Microsoft, they make money from their online services.

I agree with Danny that Yahoo still has some good products and a fighting chance. But how long will this continue to be the case if they waste golden opportunities like the on they had with del.icio.us?