Yahoo announced today that YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have acquired Delicious, and that they will keep the site up and running.

A statement on the Delicious blog says:

As creators of the largest online video platform, they have firsthand experience enabling millions of users to share their experiences with the world. They are committed to running and improving Delicious going forward.

Providing a seamless transition for users is incredibly important for both companies. Yahoo! will continue to operate Delicious until approximately July 2011. When the transition period is complete, your information will be moved over to Delicious’ new owner.

Starting today, we will ask you to login to Delicious again and agree to let Yahoo! transfer your bookmarks to the new owner. That way, you’ll enjoy uninterrupted use of the service and will keep your account and all of your bookmarks when we make the transition.

Delicious will become part of Hurley’s and Chen’s company AVOS.

Yahoo said, “While we love Delicious (and our users love Delicious), we wanted to find a home for the product where it can receive more love and attention. We think AVOS is that place.”

Avos is said to be keeping the service up and running as is, but intends to add features going forward. This would certainly make more sense than buying it and letting it stagnate.

Users will have to go to an opt-in page to agree to AVOS’ terms of service and transfer their bookmarks. Information to be transferred includes: username, password, email address, first and last name, bookmarks, tags, notes, inbox items, tag bundles, tag descriptions, network members, subscriptions, blogpost jobs, and Twitter Auth credentials.

Those that wish to export their data can do do with this tool. If users don’t opt-in, they will no longer be able to use Delicious.

AVOS does say it is making a Firefox 4 Delicious extension a “top priority”.

The transition is expected to be complete in July.