March 14th, 2009
stumble . stumbleupon
The Killer Tool that will Kill StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is definitely one of the better social media sites around. They’ve created an extremely loyal audience and continue to grow…. even through their ups and downs. SU seems to go through identity crises from time to time, but in my opinion, that’s good… it means they’re always looking to improve.
The latest tool that SU released enhances the way you share your stumbles with your friends and followers. As opposed to sharing your site on a one-at-a-time basis, you can now send to everyone with a single click. This is any social marketers dream… assuming they’ve done a good job gaining friends and followers. The new stumble-blasting tool just might give them an edge that’s second to none… not even Twitter.
Is that going to happen… not likely. The most likely end-result of this initiative is the demise of StumbleUpon. We all just might be taking our last stumbles… unfortunately.
Here’s why:
Lost User-Loyalty: It’s easy to jump behind the keyboard and get a few stumbles in. With this new tool, it’s not that easy. We will be required to click through a bunch of “made-for-adsense” sites or blogs that pertain nothing to our interests. Spam-Upon: Just today I was sent well over 50 stumbles which was/is very frustrating. Additional to those 50+ clicks I had to go through, I had to shuffle through 50+ emails about the same stumbles. We can only expect to see an increase on this… as the SU tool was recently released, not everyone has caught on yet. One might argue that we just need to stop following these stumble-spammers… True, but who has time to do that?
Lost Advertising Revenue: Surely the folks at SU realized that this initiative will only decrease their advertising sales… How? Simple. All sponsored stumbles will now be sitting behind spammed stumbles… This posses a problem as it’ll take longer for sponsored stumbles to get served. Additionally, with the loss of user-loyalty, there will be a decrease in the number of times the ’stumble’ button gets clicked, therefore the sponsored stumbles never makes it to some users.
StumbleUpon might also realize a drop in the amount of advertisers. Their advertising modalities will no longer carry the same value because the ads are second to spammed stumbles. For many advertisers, the NEED to advertise through SU will be eliminated.
I really hope I’m wrong about this stuff… Thoughts?
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Comments
Hi Jason,
As a new SU user what shocks me is that the site has been online for so long and yet is still so buggy and under-developed. One of the first things I noticed were various bugs with submitting, poorly developed interfaces and so on. What I don’t get is why SU is trying to develop new stuff when I can’t help but feel what they should be doing is fixing and improving what they’ve already built — then build new stuff.
I think this tool was needed, but I also think there should be some user settings associated with it; otherwise, like you pointed out it really could and will create a mess that will lead to user/revenue loss.
It will be interesting to watch and see how this plays out.
Andrew Johnson
March 14th, 2009
Excellent points made. I agree with you… I wonder if the SU team feels that they need to stay ahead of the game, regardless of their current buggy technology.
Jason
March 15th, 2009
I can definitely see your scenario playing out. I already have had a ton of email too. I think that this is “Creeping Ebayism” oozing in. I hope it doesn’t ruin one of my favorite tools on the internet. Because if Stumbleupon gets ruined, I may have no recourse other than using all that time that I waste every day productively. No, please no!
VitaminCM
March 15th, 2009
Good point, they’re probably counting on the loyalty of their users to be patient while they improve the existing technology but at the same time have developers working on and releasing new stuff. In fact, I spent some time today in the StumbleUpon group and it appears “change is on the horizon” all around.
Andrew Johnson
March 15th, 2009
Oh really? That’s good to hear Andrew.
Jason
March 17th, 2009
It is a bit annoying to have the email and the stumble. I hope that changes first.
Mike
March 17th, 2009
“One might argue that we just need to stop following these stumble-spammers… True, but who has time to do that?”
No time because you’ll be too busy blindly stumbling spam that you know is spam? Is SU to blame for the wasted time, or the spammers/fact you don’t unfriend them?
Criticizing the logic here, so please don’t take this personally.
Gab Goldenberg
March 17th, 2009
I equate SU’s new share feature to Digg’s shout feature.
When it first came out, people were PISSED! Called you a spammer if you sent them something. You were looked down upon if you used it. But, then people slowly warmed up to it, and now it’s a major feature for digg users.
I think Stumbleupon is the best social site, and there will definitely be an adjustment to this.. Because now, everybody is still using it, and practically abusing it… eventually, it’ll even itself out and won’t be such a burden to people.
Also, it’s very easy to stop all of the emails… At the very bottom of a Stumble email, there should be a link that will take you right to your Stumble settings. Most people I’ve talked to have done this.
Jeff F.
March 17th, 2009
Gab – I get your point… But no matter how you look at it, time is getting wasted and deferred from the true SU Objective. So, either spend time trying to clean up your account or spend time dealing with spam-stumbles. The only other option is to stop using SU entirely, which I believe will be the most utilized option of all.
Jason
March 17th, 2009
Jeff – Excellent comment… Great points made. I agree, SU is the best… so let’s do hope it all gets evened out.
Jason
March 17th, 2009
Jason – Really enjoyed your article. It is well written and well thought out. I like stumble as well, and have seen the new addition to the program (although I have yet to use it).
Your points are well made and it is definitely possible that it could cause some short term effects. However, I do believe that after a little time – the Stumble Team will figure out a way to curb out the garbage before we all get inundated with it.
Maybe we also just need to be more selective of who we follow and seek to be friends with in Stumble. As for me I like to find people that have a few articles that I enjoy or search on the internet and then revisit them specifically to see if they have anything new.
Great job and keep up the thought provoking articles.
M.L. Zupan
March 17th, 2009
As expected, it’s only getting worse
Jason
March 19th, 2009
I got 37 stumble referrals today. About 25 from just 3 users. It will be taken over by the spammers for sure.
Dr.Bruce
March 19th, 2009
Totally… It’s rather ridiculous and very frustrating. It’s one thing to be sent relevant sites… and a completely different thing when they have nothing to do with your interests, etc. I’ve been taking the time to remove the spammers from my SU account…
Jason
March 20th, 2009
The first problem here lies with SU being classified as a social app. When i started using SU i loved the fact that i joined, checked my interests and wham…i was finding really cool stuff i otherwise would have missed on the net. It was simple and easy…period. I haven’t tried to connect with all kinds of people through SU…I dont even want to. If there is something relevant that i feel someone else should know about i send them the link in email…or their preferred social networking app. Maybe i’m just too old school, but i like things simple and i hate wasting time, especially for what i consider to be leisure activity. SU should stick to the primary functionality and leave the social aspects to other better qualified tools.
Mark Hendricks
March 22nd, 2009
Good points…
Jason
March 23rd, 2009
ok let see how it work
ORI Network
April 26th, 2009
I use this option from past few months and feels that access use of share create irritation under the friends minds as their is maximum limit of 99 notification in the box.
Suppose you inbox in full and when someone send you any thing then he /she have to face the INBOX_ERROR.
Rest is ok with the SU as i’ll suggest to make your profile informative and spam free.
You can add me on http://honeytech.stumbleupon.com
Honey Singh
June 2nd, 2009
SU killed itself the same way Digg killed itself, when it had a share option.
That is, it didn’t: it grew larger, instead.
Seriously, it’s not about the tool, it’s about the people. If spammers are not reported, everyone leaves. If great stuff is shared more easily, everyone wins.
Yura
June 2nd, 2009
You may want to write a new article about Stumbleupon, I’ve been receiving unsolicited e-mails from them under the name of AStumbleMeister Interesting sign of desperation??
Steve
June 3rd, 2009