Yahoo today announced that it has sold the bookmarking service Delicious to YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steven Chen. According to Yahoo, the plan is to continue the service and “make the site even easier and more fun to save, share and discover the web’s “tastiest” content. Yahoo will continue to manage the service for the next few months until the transition to Hurley’s and Chen’s newly launched AVOS company is complete. Delicious expect the transition period to last until July 2011. Financial details about the transition were not released.

According to an FAQ posted on AVOS’ site, the first priority for the new owners is to launch a Firefox 4 extension (AVOS’s website is currently down, likely due to the high interest in this story).

Yahoo acquired Delicious in 2005 and the service has lingered in limbo ever since. While Yahoo kept the lights at Delicious on, it did not do much to introduce new features to it over the years. According to an internal memo that was leaked to the press in December 2010, Yahoo planned to “sunset” Delicious if it didn’t find a buyer for it soon.

Here is the full text of AVOS’ press release:

YOUTUBE FOUNDERS ACQUIRE DELICIOUS FROM YAHOO!

Promise Users the Same Great Service And Even Easier & More Fun Ways To Save, Share, and Discover the Web’s “Tastiest” Content.

San Francisco, CA., – April 26, 2011 – Delicious.com, the leading social bookmarking service, has been acquired by the founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. As creators of the largest online video platform, they have firsthand experience enabling millions of users to share their experiences with the world. Their vision for Delicious is to continue to provide the same great service users love and to make the site even easier and more fun to save, share, and discover the web’s “tastiest” content. Delicious will become part of AVOS, a new Internet company.

“We’re excited to work with this fantastic community and take Delicious to the next level,” said Chad Hurley, CEO of AVOS. “We see a tremendous opportunity to simplify the way users save and share content they discover anywhere on the web.”

“We spoke with numerous parties interested in acquiring the site, and chose Chad and Steve based on their passion and unique vision for Delicious,” said John Matheny, SVP of Communications and Communities at Yahoo!

The YouTube founders plan to work closely with the community over the next few months to develop innovative features to help solve the problem of information overload. “We see this problem not just in the world of video, but also cutting across every information-intensive media type,” said Chen.

Going back to their roots, Hurley and Chen located Delicious in downtown San Mateo, California, blocks away from where they started YouTube. They’re aggressively hiring to build a world-class team to take on the challenge of building the best information discovery service on the web.