I’ve been seeing a decent amount of questions regarding how StumbleUpon makes a profit.
SU profits in 2 ways: Sponsors, and Sponsored Stumbles. Read on to find out how each of these affects you.
Sponsors
In SU, you have the option of donating a certain amount of money (suggested $20 for a 1 year membership), and you get a cool green icon instead of a blue one next to your name. Additionally, you can start groups, get messages emailed to you, as well as turning off sponsored stumbles.
Sponsored Stumbles
How else does SU make money? Every once in a while, a site that you’re taken to is there because an advertiser paid $.05 to bring you there. This site will generally be related to your interests, and you can’t tell the difference. Generally, less than 2% of all Stumbles are sponsored.
I hope this answers some of the questions you have about how StumbleUpon makes its money.
May 14th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Top |
one comment
So there’s been a lot of news about StumbleUpon being acquired by eBay, including a Wall Street Journal (Subscription required).
First, a recap of some of the major theories:
GigaOM had the first feasible argument: “By marrying the toolbar to Skype client, eBay can do an end run around Google’s dominance of the search business. ”
Valleywag claims that it’s basically a random purchase: “Ebay has more money, from its outrageous monopoly on online collectibles and other auctions, than sense.”
eBay Strategies presents a detailed analysis of the situation and believes that eBay may be looking at a long term angle to getting into the search business that will sidestep Google. If not, at least they’ll have a powerful recommendation engine for eBay.
My thoughts? eBay is acquiring it as a defensive measure.
I don’t think StumbleUpon and eBay can directly integrate, although I can easily see the StumbleThru feature recently introduced as working on the eBay domain - this wouldn’t require a buyout though. Frankly, SU is mainly an entertainment, and not a product-purchasing tool, and converting users into buyers will be a difficult task.
I do think eBay considered how powerful of an asset Google would have if they bought it out, and so part of the value of the purchase is in a defensive measure. Google could easily integrate Stumble into it’s toolbar (what it half-assed with the dice) and reach millions more users, receive direct feedback on websites, as well as acquire a strong social network. eBay already feels threatened with Google Checkout (competing against PayPal) and Google checkout products (against eBay) - they don’t want to give Google more ammunition.
And eBay strategies has a valid point - if they can build a recommendation engine on eBay with StumbleUpon-level relevancy, it could easily increase sales and mean massive profit boosts. Could eBay be considering entering the search with SU? Doubtful, unless it plans to buy out Ask.com or Live and integrating the two - StumbleUpon is NOT a search engine, its primary purpose and use is entertainment.
Thoughts?
May 11th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Top, Google |
one comment
So for the last article in the StumbleUpon series, I’m going to write about a couple of black-hat services that exist solely to game StumbleUpon. These are Stumblexchange and and AVUW (no link juice), which both act in the exact same way: to exchange Stumbles between people and increase SU traffic.
Once you sign up, you’re given a list of sites to go and Stumble positively. Once this has been done, the system goes over to SU and checks whether you’ve accomplished the list. While you’re doing this, you can also submit your own links - Stumblexchange only allows one link, AVUW allows you to add as many as you want. Theoretically, people then will Stumble your page positively and attract more Stumblers.
However, in a test, StumbleUpon was surprisingly effective in filtering out traffic. I chose a page that had already been heavily Stumbled before and was still receiving a small amount of traffic, so I expected a small increase assuming that it would be Stumbled positively.
Looking at the logs, Stumblexchange sent me 2 extra visitors (although not necessarily thumbs up), and AVUW sent me about sixteen. My increase in traffic? 0 - it had been an average of 2 a day, and it remained 2 a day - AVUW sent me more direct traffic in that time than StumbleUpon did!
There are two possibilities as to why this happened: StumbleUpon had no one else interested in the topic that hadn’t already visited it OR the Stumblers were essentially discounted by the algorithm, because their voting interests were unlike anyone elses, and often stumbled positively really bad content. Most of them are also most likely using a secondary account without much of a Stumbling history.
Hence, the Stumble effect of these services is minimal, and isn’t a significant risk to destroying the quality of the content added to StumbleUpon. At some point, I’ll have to try this service on a new page and test the effects. Maybe after eBay confirms their purchase of StumbleUpon?
April 23rd, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Social Search, Top |
no comments
Couple of articles that claim and discuss this over at TechCrunch and GigaOM.
TC: High-flying startup StumbleUpon has been rumored to be in acquisition discussions since at least last November. Recently we’ve heard that talks have heated up again, with Google, AOL and eBay as potential suitors. A source with knowledge of the deal now says the company has signed a term sheet with eBay to be acquired. The price is somewhere between $40 - $75 million.
Giga: By marrying the toolbar to Skype client, eBay can do an end run around Google’s dominance of the search business. A simple search box inside Skype client is all it would take. It is not that far fetched: Skype has been slowly integrating various different services (including PayPal) into its client, and slowly becoming eBay’s desktop backdoor.
April 18th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon |
no comments
I feel like all I’ve been writing about is StumbleUpon recently. I promise that I’m almost done, but things just keep popping up that are nothing short of “WOW.”
Take, for example, Google’s new toolbar button. You click on it, and it takes you to a site that your search history would suggest that you like. Hmm… does that sound at all like StumbleUpon, where you click on a thumbs up or thumbs down, and it takes you to a site that your voting history suggests you would like?
However, an initial use of this tool suggests that it still has a long way to go before the quality of the sites is anywhere near that of StumbleUpon. My initial 20 site spree took me to sites which I recognized why I was visiting (text-link-ads, local newspapers, a few mmorpg sites as I’ve recently picked up Guild Wars). However, none of these sites were actually interesting to me, and it fails as a discovery service.
The question is, could it work in the future? With Google’s toolbar power and reach, it stands a chance. It all depends if the content delivery is as exciting as that of StumbleUpon.
April 18th, 2007
posted in Google Toolbar, StumbleUpon, Social Search, Top, Google |
no comments
There’s always been a lot of confusion as to the difference and meaning of “Audience” and “Fans” in StumbleUpon.
“Fans” are pretty easy. It’s the number of friends you have, plus the number of people that have subscribed to your pages (which they’ve done by friending you, or possibly just by thumbs-upping your SU profile).
Audience was a weird one. Sometimes mine would only go up by one or two, then it shot up by hundreds, then dropped hundreds. My closest guess is to assume it was an expression of an internal algorithm that showed your SU Karma or vote weight.
And now its gone, which is a good thing. That was a useless (although) fun bit of information that confused the hell out of a lot of people. And people were obsessing about it. And people were trying to increase it, likely by not honestly stumbling pages. Overall, this should now create a better user experience and better stumblers.
April 17th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Top |
no comments
During StumbleUpon Week here at MikeBogo.com, I interviewed a few of the top Stumblers (people that SU has rated as the top users. The first is StarSpirit, the #1 top Stumbler who has rated positively over 111,000 pages and has 1266 fans - very impressive! Another is RChobert, who is the founder of VirtualVideoMap.com. Finally, we have GSSPP5, who is from Philadelphia.
Check out what they had to say about StumbleUpon:
Mike Bogo: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
RChobert: My professional background is in education and has morphed into the e-learning field. I know enough programming to make me dangerous in regards to developing some radical new ideas on the web, such as virtualvideomap.com. I enjoy developing web sites that give the user some kind of experience.
StarSpirit: I’m a woman from Arizona. I started stumbling in January of 2005.
GSSPP5: I am a 25 year old guy. I am into sports, movies, etc. I also want to know everything and I get bored very easily.
MB: What got you involved in StumbleUpon in the first place?
SS: One of my favorite blogs went on vacation and left a comment page open, and somebody mentioned Stumbleupon. I had a science and a art blog myself which I soon dumped after joining StumbleUpon, which I found easier, more fun, and friendlier.
GS: I got involved in stumbleupon through a buddy of mine. It wound up working out well. It generally only sends me “good” sites and it allows me to forward most of the sites that I like to friends who are working.
RC: My Video Map was submitted by StumbleUpon user “ChaseLightning”. Never heard of SU until then (June 06). Signed up, started another blog that corresponds with my StumbleUpon blog, which is virtualmagic.blogspot.com. This blog has videos of various topics of interest. My StumbleUpon blog leads visitors to each “video topic” on Virtual Magic. I’ve also blended in two other blogs, comprisal.blogspot.com and blendedexposures.blogspot.com. All three blogs are integrated with each other so the user does not feel he/she is leaving the site. This was due to the fact of the homepage on Virtual Magic becoming too large. My StumbleUpon blog was not always this way though. I started off photoblogging like most users.
MB: How did you get into the top Stumbler position? Did you actively try to get there, or did it just happen?
GS: I did not know I was a top stumbler until you told me so I guess it just happened.
RC: I am not sure how StumbleUpon determines their “Top Stumblers”. Basically, I was just browsing that page one day and saw myself listed, so it just happened. I do believe, however, that one thing I have started doing more often just since I got to be a “Top Stumbler” is stumbling and thumbing up my friends pages. This must be important.
MB: StumbleUpon has a lot of different features and aspects to it. Which features do you like best, and which things annoy you the most?
RC: I like most of the features I guess or I wouldn’t use it as often as I do. I think the search tool is probably underutilized my most people. Lately, I’ve found myself searching SU instead of Google because of ALL the spam web pages on Google.
SS: I like the comments, sometimes they’re hilarious, and I like to see who visits. (I wish they would expand that because I miss some sometimes). The stumble video is very annoying.
GS: I like the way it allows me to email directly from the page I am on. What irks me to no end is that every couple of days I have to reenter the email addresses I send to.
RC: Which things annoy me the most? The 200 friend limit. Why not just have fans or no limit at all. Makes no sense to LIMIT friends. This is an annoying feature and I hope SU will do something about it soon. And what is the “Audience”? Does anybody ‘really’ know? What also annoys me is not knowing how it is determined what submissions are shown to others right off the bat after submitting them. I’ve submitted some pages, and they are NEVER stumbled by one person. I know not all of my submissions are going to go viral on SU, but how is it determined that NO ONE views a submitted webpage? Does SU management filter submissions???
MB: The social aspect of SU is something that isn’t necessary, but is an interesting feature. How much time do you spend interacting in the StumbleUpon community?
RC: I spend 0% of my time associating with the StumbleUpon Community. Besides thumbing up their blogs I like and maybe adding a friend here and there, little or no regular communication is going on. It is very nice to receive comments, though I rarely comment on others SU blogs. I am happy to thumb up any SU blog though.
GS: None.
SS: It ‘IS’ necessary. It all depends - I have spent several hours cowriting poetry, joking around, or arguing about the latest issues, but usually a half hour a day in email. I spend more time on IM with fellow Stumblers than email.
MB: Free write time - anything else you’d like to say about anything?
RC: Thanks to the regular readers. Thanks to for the nice and encouraging comments.
SS: I think drugs should be legalized and anybody in prison or jail for simple posession should be released.
I think the top ten polluters in the world should be closed down every month till they get there act together with help from all the scientific communities and a paypal fund.
I think birthmarks are a result/scar from the sperm entering the egg.
And, even though the founders of stumbleupon are very handsome, I’m WAY cuter.
Thanks for all of the great responses! Happy Stumbling!
If you’re interested in more info about StumbleUpon, check out the StumbleUpon Resource List or the other articles written during StumbleUpon Week.
April 10th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Social Search, Top |
no comments
AlexKnibb posted a list of tricks to improve the number of friends and reviews you have on StumbleUpon. Here’s a few, and these will work on almost any social networking site.
Part I - Setting up your profile
1. You are female. Even if you’re not, you are now.
2. Your age should be higher than 15, but lower than 30.
3. Find a picture either of yourself (if you’re female) or of someone else (if you’re not, and remember you are now) which meets the following criteria:
–a. It’s slightly ambiguous (i.e. not just a standard head shot, unless you do happen to be devastatingly attractive)
–b. It’s slightly flirtatious (looking up into the camera helps)
–c. Hotpants help (see putain.stumbleupon.com)
Check out the rest of Alex’s tips here!
April 5th, 2007
posted in Humor, StumbleUpon, Social Search, Top |
no comments
In part 1 of this series, you learned about the basics of StumbleUpon, so you should be able to answer these questions:
- What is StumbleUpon?
- How do I add pages to StumbleUpon?
- How do I make my vote more influential?
In this portion, we will answer the following questions:
- What kind of pages do Stumblers like?
- How do I get even more visitors from SU?
- How can I convert a Stumbler into a regular visitor?
- What are five big mistakes people make with StumbleUpon?
- How does StumbleUpon make money?
Let’s start off with the last one, since it will help you understand the average Stumbler better.
How Does StumbleUpon Make Money?
SU makes money by delivering advertisers’ web pages directly to the user. Every few times that you click ‘Stumble’, you are actually visiting a website that paid five cents to get you there. A big tipoff of these if you’re taken to the home page of a commercial site, since they don’t do their homework and just assume all pages will have an equivalent return.
Most stumblers know this, and so they’re very wary of paid-stumbles. They’ll often go out of their way to give a thumbs down, preventing any free visitors from coming in. As a result, anything that has a whiff of commercialism is going to do poorly, and you’ll lose that visitor and more in under five seconds.
What kind of pages do Stumblers like?
The last paragraph gave you an idea of what the average Stumbler doesn’t like. Home page, commercial products, anything that seems spammy. Keep away from that.
What do they like? Eye-catching content. If your site looks boring and doesn’t have an article with a catchy, off-beat title, they’ll hit the button and move on. Seriously - their mouse is already over it, and it’s so much easier to go to the next page than figure out what they should be looking at.
Definitely put the best content above the fold. But what kind of content works best? Stumblers are perusing the web without a purpose - they’re channel-surfing the web, so you have to catch their attention immediately. A funny photo, or a video with a good title. A ridiculous or original headline, or something truly unique - like dontclick.it, a website designed entirely without the need to click. Concept websites like dontclick.it are perfect for SU.
Whatever it is, it’s crucial that the Stumbler can tell what the site is about and be interested by it without having to work too hard at it, and without scrolling down.
How do I get even more visitors from SU?
You already know that stumbling, rating, getting more friends, and adding new pages that other people like will increase your Karma and make your vote more effective, so it makes sense to vote for your own pages. There’s no taboo against adding your own pages, and there’s definitely no taboo in voting for yourself.
But how do you get even more visitors?
Add additional tags - if your page is in the category of website development, add a tag for anything related - perhaps website design, websites, blogs, anything that may be related. SU will see these added tags and send people that are interested in blogs, but may not have listed website development as one of their interests.
Send it to your friends. They’re most likely to vote positively for your site, and more positive votes (especially in a short time period) will mean more visitors. 10 votes in 10 minutes are more valuable than the same votes in 10 hours.
Make sure that you only Stumble the best pages on your domain. SU takes into account the average quality of pages Stumbled, not to mention that visitors will also remember bad pages and hurt the branding of your site, preventing them from exploring further.
Finally, rate positively any sites or pages that link to your pages. The massive influx of traffic on their page will be good for them, but it will also mean that some of those visitors will click on your link and go to your site. This may seem like a unrewarding work, but it means the other site is filtering out the Stumblers that were going to leave anyway, and you only get the highest quality visitors.
How can I convert a Stumbler into a regular visitor?
One thing that you need to accept: most Stumblers will leave immediately after they first see the page. You’ll lose the majority, guaranteed.
However, SU sends so much traffic that if even a small percentage of these visitors are converted, you’ll add quite a few subscribers or repeat visitors.
Here’s how to do it:
- Have an RSS button and email subscription form clearly visible above the fold.
- Have an RSS button and email link clearly visible at the end of whatever content you’re presenting. Pretend the Stumbler is the laziest person you ever met and has a horrible case of ADD - make it as easy possible for them.
- Give them other places to go at the end of the content
- If you’re noticing StumbleUpon traffic, mention it if you can. Many Stumblers love their service, and if you acknowledge it and welcome them, you’ll be seen as part of the in-group of Stumblers.
Easy tactics, and the first three are tactics that you should already be doing, but it’s even more critical for SU visitors (as well Digg, Reddit, and all the other social sites). The fourth will significantly increase your conversion rate because it will make the site more personal and human.
Finally, the big one:
What are five big mistakes people make with StumbleUpon-bait?
- Stumbling the home-page. Big mistake - if I have to look for interesting content, I’m already gone and assuming it was a paid advertisement
- Lots of intrusive advertisements, especially above the fold. If it looks like AdSense is your primary content, I’ve already gone on to the next site. I will not scroll down to look for the good stuff.
- Tons of unbroken text. Boooring. Unless you have something really hilarious or important, I don’t care. At best, if it’s extremely educational, I’ll bookmark it and go back to it later.
- Mis-tagging or mis-categorizing. That’s a thumbs down, and no, I won’t recategorize it for you.
- Pitching a product. I’m not in the mood to buy something. If it’s really, really cool and fun, show me a video of what it does. Tell me a story. I’m not in a purchasing mood when I’m stumbling, but if it’s something unique and you entertain me, I may come back to it later.
This should get you well on your way to getting more visitors and more conversions with StumbleUpon. Look for another article coming up in a couple of days - this one will look at some of the other features of SU that are newer, such as StumbleVideo and StumbleBuzz.
April 4th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Social Search, Top, Articles |
no comments
There’s a good chance you’ve heard of StumbleUpon. There’s been a lot written about it recently, but if you haven’t, then you need to know about this program. It has the potential to drive tens of thousands of targetted visitors directly to your website, and if you don’t want to take advantage of that, you’re missing out on a major potential traffic and link-building source.
The Basics of StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is the channel-surfing tool of the internet, with over 2 million users. It allows people to quickly and easily visit and “discover” new webpages that they otherwise never would have.
The process: You install a toolbar (see below), you signup, and then you hit stumble. Pick some interesting topics, ranging from photography, web development, humor, gardening, and hundreds of others, and Stumble will start giving you pages that other users have rated positively.
Over time, as you rate pages, Stumble will learn what you like and match you up with similar Stumblers, giving you pages that they’ve marked as “thumbs up”.
You’ll end up finding amusing, interesting sites that you otherwise would have never even thought of looking for.
How it Works
StumbleUpon gets to know what you like when you rate web pages, and matches you up with similar users. Additionally, when you add new sites that are quality, you start getting good “Karma” and future sites that you submit and your votes will have more weight.
Adding a site is easy - just give a page thumbs up that hasn’t been stumbled yet, and it’ll be added to the database, and you’ll get credit for it.
Then there’s the entire social network aspect. To be honest, this isn’t a thrilling aspect, but it could be interesting for some people, since it automatically matches you up with people with similar interests. If you invest more time, you can make “friends” with other users, and they’ll be more likely to see your pages.
How to make it benefit your site
Stumble your own pages. There’s nothing against the code of StumbleUpon that says that you can’t Stumble your own pages. However, you have to choose content that will attract Stumblers’ attention, and keep them on the site for longer than a few seconds.
The ease of stumbling also leads to one of the downsides of StumbleUpon - it makes it really easy to leave sites.
In the next article, learn how to capture a Stumbler’s attention and how to convert Stumblers into regular visitors. Read it tomorrow!
April 2nd, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Social Search, Top |
no comments
Since Stumble has been sending many of us a huge amount of traffic, I thought it would be useful to find some resources on how to best make use of this traffic. This list will be kept updated with the best articles found - if you have one, please let me know by emailing me or commenting. There’s still a dire need for some good, informative articles.
Also, if you want to check me out on SU, my Stumble username is thebogo. Italicized entries have been recently added (Saturday, May 12th).
If you have a quality article, or know of one, comment or email me and I’ll add it to the resource. Read more for extra articles that didn’t quite make it to the top of the list.
Continue reading “Ultimate StumbleUpon Resource”
February 22nd, 2007
posted in Blog Tools, StumbleUpon, Social Search, Top, Articles, Marketing |
20 comments
StumbleUpon has somehow managed to create a tool so addictive, so useful that it sends more people to websites than Google. And people LOVE it, and they love the brand as well. In fact, just mentioning SU in an article seems to bring more Stumblers in (as it did in this article). I’m sure these other articles I stumbled across also received massive amounts of visitors. Neil Patel writes that he got 17,209 Stumblers to his site in 25 days.
How does Stumble do it? In premise, it’s basically channel-surfing the web, but the concept is so easy and unique it gets fans. And it’s like gambling, where you’re betting your time for interesting content (it follows the most addictive kind of reward schedule - read more about that here).
And because it keeps giving us cool stuff, and because it’s completely unique in the web world, we end up being loyal, addicted SU junkies. And it gives website visitors directly to their site - no hoping for high click-throughs, they see your site.
What can you learn from SU when designing your next web project? Make it dead easy to use. Make it fun. Make it addictive. Give them a reason to keep coming back. People will keep coming back for more, and Stumblers will become part of your community.
February 17th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Top |
3 comments
Web 2.0 was all about the social. We’re starting to graduate from that and see the “Personalized” trend. In my last article, I mentioned the idea that we were entering the next version of the web, and I praised StumbleUpon for being one of the leaders in this field.
On Feb. 8th, I wrote that Digg needs to get in on this trend, considering how much information it already has. On February 9th, BusinessWeek talked to Digg founder Kevin Rose - Kevin announced that “Digg will be smart enough to know what interests you.” By the end of the year, Digg should have a recommendation system out similar to Stumble and be able to give you stories based on what you’ve dugg and buried.
I’m going to give myself a cookie for calling it. Look for a post on this new trend of personalization and all of the sites that have or are starting to implement it.
February 10th, 2007
posted in StumbleUpon, Digg, News, Top |
no comments
People have had mixed responses to Google’s Personalized search. Surprisingly little has been said about it- Graywolf is bitching about it, and Search Engine Land is cautiously accepting it. Who else is writing about it? (damn, I wish Google Reader had a search feature)
I think it’s the best damn thing ever.
In fact, I think it’s almost herald of the “new” generation. Granted, I use this term loosely, but if Web 1.0 was content based on computer algorithms, and Web 2.0 was user-chosen content, then the next logical step would be to have a hybrid; one that would take the user input, throw it into a personalized algorithm to give you an absolutely unique set of highly specialized results.
StumbleUpon has already done this - their algo matches up our interests with other peoples similar interests to give us personalized results. Unfortunately, their system is a bit too haphazard to work as a search engine, but is a fantastic tool for channel-surfing the web. In terms of idea, it’s far more advanced than Digg.
And what about Digg? Why isn’t it jumping along on the personalization bandwagon? It would solve many of their problems - how can you scheme onto the front page of digg if everyone has a different, customized page? And you already KNOW what people like - they’ve been telling you since Digg’s creation. Take that information and USE IT.
There’s going to be a lot of negative reaction in the web development market, because people aren’t going to know how to react, and testing will be more difficult - forever. That’s a bad thing for legit SEO’s, but an even worse thing for spammers and black-hatters.
Things are getting shaken up. Let the fall-out begin.
February 8th, 2007
posted in Digg, StumbleUpon, News, Top, Google Search, Google |
4 comments
