The good news from the Shelfari deal is that when startups get acquired, they tend to stagnate. This is how Del.icio.us went from a truly innovative startup to a company that spent two years readying their second release.
Bad, bad example, and one that makes me doubt the analytical powers of the LT honcho. The reader is supposed to believe that Delicious has either been standing still for 2 years, or that v.2 was a waste of Joshua Schachter's immense efforts to improve it. And there is no doubt that Delicious has climbed a slow curve, but the worst thing about this piece is that if this guy had ever used it he might have picked up the subtleties and functionality of Delicious that aren't so obvious to the casual user.
He would have been better off using, say, Jaiku as an illustration of what happens when a company lets a project die of attrition.