Social bookmarking service Delicious isn’t disappearaing all together, but its users have voiced their concerns over he past week, wondering what will become of their saved content and the site that helped jump start the movement towards curated and recommended content based on individual user activity.  While panic was in the air over Delicious’ fate, a former Yahoo executive fails to make things better, noting Delicious’ current state of peril.  It’s not looking good for Delicious or the Yahoo camp, and this situation highlights the dark side of trusting in a company to keep your content eternally safe and accessible.

Several users of the social bookmarking web service were alarmed with the sudden report of shut down —closure would mean they would lose all their Delicious bookmarks. On their own site, the organization apologized to its loyal users for the spread of news about this that went out of context. However, they have not reached a stage where finals plans are ironed out and can be disclosed to the public. For the meantime, they responded to some questions that arose from the “panicking users.”

Is Delicious being shut down? And should I be worried about my data?

“No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive.”

What is Yahoo! going to do with Delicious?

“We’re actively thinking about the future of Delicious and we believe there is a home outside the company that would make more sense for the service and our users. We’re in the process of exploring a variety of options and talking to companies right now. And we’ll share our plans with you as soon as we can.”

What if I want to get my bookmarks out of Delicious right away?

“As noted above, there’s no reason to panic. We are maintaining Delicious and encourage you to keep using it. That said, we have export options if you so choose. Additionally, many services provide the ability to import Delicious links and tags.

We can only imagine how upsetting the news coverage over the past 24 hours has been to many of you. Speaking for our team, we were very disappointed by the way that this appeared in the press. We’ll let you know more as things develop.”

You cannot actually blame Delicious users for easily believing a shut down could occur, as there are a handful of sites Yahoo is shutting down in 2011. Delicious was founded in 2003 by Joshua Schacter and was acquired by Yahoo! in 2005.  Delicious’ current plight has raised an important question about social bookmarking—maybe it is already drifting from the web 2.0 era.

Sites like Reddit and Digg have faced decreasing traction in the past year or so. Digg has tried constantly to change and they experienced a major overhaul this year. Nevertheless, efforts are not enough to gain grip of the market. Just this month, they added a notification feature that is no different with that of Facebook.

Another set of users feared losing their photos as Flickr is one confirmed Yahoo! site that was earmarked to close next year. People were initially enticed to backup all their Flickr photos. However, there are still efforts to keep the public’s panic levels down. They are actually recommending a transfer to Diigo.

In another report, Stumbleupon could be a member of the “ill-fated” bookmarking circle, but they look more promising than others. This is primarily because they have begun to put their data to work. They have really started to do more recommendations around their bookmarks for various niches. What is deemed big for them right now is penetrating the mobile market with access anywhere and being the “I do not know what I want” button on mobile phones, and even on TVs and computers. Looking at the latest analytics from Compete, Stumbleupon is the only social bookmarking site that is regaining relevance, compared to Delicious.com and Digg.som.