he concept of shared online bookmarks dates back to April 1996 with the launch of itList,[3] the features of which included public and private bookmarks.[4] Within the next three years, online bookmark services became competitive, with venture-backed companies such as Backflip, Blink, Clip2, ClickMarks, HotLinks, and others entering the market.
Lacking viable models for making money, this early generation of social bookmarking companies failed as the dot-com bubble burst — Backflip closed citing "economic woes at the start of the 21st century"
In 2004, as Delicious began to take off, Furl and Simpy were released, along with Citeulike and Connotea (sometimes called social citation services), and the related recommendation system Stumbleupon. In 2006, Ma.gnolia, Blue Dot (later renamed to Faves), and Diigo entered the bookmarking field, and Connectbeam