The del.icio.us announcement got a great big steaming pile of comments and website/blog coverage, much of it positive, but much of it taking part in a pre-emptive backlash dogpile against Yahoo and Joshua Schachter for selling out to The Man. Most of it echoes (and references) the backlash that occurred when Yahoo acquired Flickr.

Of course, it's always a good idea to take what you read in Internet message boards with a great big salt lick, and a list of mostly anonymous comments on a blog isn't necessarily an accurate survey of public opinion. But community-based services like Flickr and del.icio.us are at least as dependent on the opinions of the users as they are on technological innovation. As Yahoo and Google (and Microsoft, and as-yet-unannounced contenders for King Of The Internets) move towards services that rely on community building and user-created content, they're going to have to be as conscious of branding and public perception as they are of database speed and site statistics and market share.

20% More Brand Loyalty, after the jump