The new search tools include an advanced time line along with tag filtering controls, so you can determine a date range among other filter options for the content you’re seeking. Other updates to the search results page include inline playback for YouTube videos, Flickr images, and Yelp local data.

On the one hand, it’s useful to provide such search enhancements. Things like inline video playback and images are becoming standard for nearly all instances where a video or image would be included in search results, especially within social bookmarking websites. It’s something that Yahoo’s new search partner, Microsoft, did from the beginning of its Bing launch. Now both Bing and Delicious have a more media-rich and interactive set of results. Given that Flickr is another of Yahoo’s properties, it’s overdue that Delicious include images in its search results.

With the date-specific time lines and added filter options, Delicious is also able to possibly respond to the real time search results trend, which looks to blogs, microblogs and other forms of web content to provide a glimpse of what’s going on right now. A date range filter could help users hone in on a glimpse of content for any given time, thanks to the archives of social media bookmarking. Perhaps this could lead to a step in another direction for the evolution of real time search results.

Another feature update that speaks to this is the Fresh Bookmarks option Delicious. With this you can see the latest sites that people are bookmarking and discussing, which helps you track the buzz on both Delicious and Twitter. I think that combined with the other recommendation and search updates on Delicious, we’re seeing the social bookmarking site move in a very interesting direction.

Lastly, there are now options to email and tweet bookmarks you come across on Delicious. This of course makes it infinitely easier to share content across the social web, furthering the recommendation capabilities of Delicious from an interactive standpoint. From the looks of it, these added sharing options are designed more specifically for friends that aren’t on Delicious. Such an outward sharing mechanism will help curb spam issues that Digg had to manage with its internal email notification system.

If you recall, Amplify works as a browser addon that enables you to create custom clips from across the web. You can then share these clips on various social media and networking sites. With Facebook Connect integration, Amplify readily provides a direct outlet for making these custom clips social. But Amplify is also one of the few social bookmarking sites that also archives all of your content into a more digestible clog (think blog) format.

With the new following options, these clogs become even more resourceful and social, as you’re more able to view content from other Amplify users and vice versa. Just as Amplify, a company launched by the same team behind social bookmarking tool Clipmarks, had created a cute and differentiating term for your archived clips, so too have your new followers been dubbed; sources.

The very term sources speaks to the intent of the new Amplify feature, both instructing and encouraging you to follow users that can provide useful information to you personally. And once you click on a source’s clipped item, you’ll be able to view the full details of the clip including the web location from which it’s been clipped. Several options for further spreading that clip across the social web (Twitter, Facebook, Delicous, StumbleUpon) are included on this page, as well as the option to add it to your own Amplify clog.

By adding sources, Amplify is becoming a bit like Twine, among other previously mentioned services, which makes me think that Amplify is leaning towards the creation of a search tool that possibly works for semantic or discovery purposes. As the ability to archive clips inherently suggests the ability to search, this is something Amplify needs to further develop in order to truly turn followed users into information sources. Some additional filters and advanced search options would be a possible next step for Amplify in that regard.

The new features of Delicious can be summed into three major categories:

• Design – the biggest and most obvious change that you will notice when you visit Delicious.com is the new interface. The new site still carries the blue and white theme with tabs. The site is now categorized into three sections – Bookmarks, People and Tags. The Tags tab features My Tags which is a quick way of looking at all the tags you’ve used. More new features relating to the new design can be found here.
• Speed – The page now loads faster and is a direct response to traffic growth which has made the old delicious loads a bit slow, especially with Delicious’ user base expanding into 5 million already.
• Search – The Delicious search engine was completely overhauled and has become faster and more powerful. The search engine now returns search results faster than the old site. It has become even smarter and more social. You can search within tags, public bookmarks or social networks now.

These new features and enhancements maybe a bit late but certainly for those who still use social bookmarking tools such as Delicious will be a welcome development. Delicious has always be a very reliable and one of the pioneering web 2.0 applications. It’s a good thing that Yahoo has not completely forsaken one of its most dependable acquisitions. Delicious is still a widely used online tool, and with the proliferation of web 2.0 applications – the original would always be the best, and delicious.