According to StatCounter, StumbleUpon drove more traffic in 2009 than any other social media site in the US, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, and Pinterest. But like other content discovery sites, StumbleUpon is having trouble turning diversion into a business — especially now that traffic has plummeted following a big redesign.
Restarting
StumbleUpon has an interesting history. EBay swallowed up the company in 2007 when it was just a Firefox extension, albeit with 7.4 million users and some advertising revenue. But the auctionhouse couldn’t figure out what to do with its acquisition, so in 2009 cofounders Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith bought the site back with the help of investors for a reported $75 million. StumbleUpon ballooned from about 30 to 130 employees, about two-thirds of whom are developers. After spinning out, the company launched plug-ins for all the major browsers and started amassing traffic straight to StumbleUpon.com. It launched apps for iPhone and iPad, Android phones, and the Nook and Kindle e-readers.
In April, after three years as a "restartup," Camp proudly announced two milestones. StumbleUpon hit 25 million users, more than triple the number it had when it was owned by eBay. What’s more, those users were clicking the "stumble" button 1.2 billion times a month.
All seemed rosy. But behind the scenes, StumbleUpon's traffic was way down in the wake of its biggest redesign ever. StumbleUpon was always a big dumb firehose of traffic, which is why publishers loved it. But starting at the end of last year, StumbleUpon has been driving noticeably fewer hits — reminiscent of the fallout at rival aggregator Digg, where a big redesign drove users away.
In May, Camp stepped down as CEO. "After 10 years leading StumbleUpon, it’s time for a change," he wrote on the company blog. Camp, who also cofounded the car service Uber, now chairs StumbleUpon’s board. The company is still looking for a CEO. In the interim, three executives are making decisions as a committee.
Traffic Turbulence
As part of a major overhaul in December, StumbleUpon tweaked its homepage to look more modern and "fresh," and tried to make the navigation more visual. At the same time, big changes were made to the algorithm that had the effect of distributing stumbles — pageviews originating from StumbleUpon — more widely across the web, so that users weren’t being sent to the same few sites over and over again. Around the same time, StumbleUpon started pushing its mobile apps, which now account for 25 percent of stumbles. Unfortunately, mobile users tend to spend less time on the site.
As part of a major overhaul in December, StumbleUpon tweaked its homepage to look more modern and "fresh," and tried to make the navigation more visual. At the same time, big changes were made to the algorithm that had the effect of distributing stumbles — pageviews originating from StumbleUpon — more widely across the web, so that users weren’t being sent to the same few sites over and over again. Around the same time, StumbleUpon started pushing its mobile apps, which now account for 25 percent of stumbles. Unfortunately, mobile users tend to spend less time on the site.
by Adrianne Jeffries, The Verge | Read more:
Image via: My Social Agency
