StumbleUpon Gets Sold to eBay – Initial Community Reactions Aren’t Good
May 30, 2007 by Chris Winfield | Social Networks
The rumors have been confirmed – eBay has officially acquired StumbleUpon. This acquisition has been rumored since November and tonight StumbleUpon confirmed it on their blog:
StumbleUpon has officially joined eBay. We’re excited about this, and we hope you are too.
Looking to the future, we think that joining eBay is the right thing to do to help us to grow StumbleUpon to its full potential. We think eBay is a great fit for us because eBay and StumbleUpon share similar approaches – we’re both driven by our community of users, and we are both dedicated to connecting people.
One interesting aspect to this sale is the immediate feedback from the StumbleUpon community. The page was immediately ‘stumbled‘ and the community immediately started voicing their opinion. So far the majority of the feedback has been negative and against the deal. Here are just a few of the comments so far (many can’t be printed here):
* Yuck. There goes the neighborhood.
* SU officially auctioned off.
* Surprise, surprise. “Rumors” indeed. Holy drama, look at the negative reviews flood in. I’m relatively proud of you worthless a%&holes right now.
* NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One of the great things about social media is the immediate feedback from your users. Whether good or bad, its important to know what people are thinking so that you can be better prepared to address it. The most important thing that StumbleUpon can do is prove to their users that this is the truth:
We also want you to know that not much will change around here. We’ll be running StumbleUpon separately within eBay Inc., and we’ll still be focused on developing features based on your feedback.
Early feedback indicates that people don’t think this will be the case…
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17 Responses to “StumbleUpon Gets Sold to eBay – Initial Community Reactions Aren’t Good”
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Wow.. I can’t believe this.. this is really disappointing.. I mean, I don’t like seeing great things that start out so independent.. being swallowed up by big freakin conglomerates.. I’m also surprised that I haven’t stumbled onto this yet.. but I plan on leaving my feedback as well..
So, what does this mean for us StumbleUpon users?
Boy, am I disappointed, E-bay of all companies. Get ready for the mess! This is worse than finding out, products in Walmart is not all American made!
This is the most horrible news I have ever heard. I will be instantly removing stumble from my firefox and I will be telling my friends to do so as well. Way to sell out!
eBay??,makes no sense at all, once it becomes official and eBay sucks up StumbleUpon,I too will remove the software,yes,it’s a great “fit” for SU because they all just sold out!StumbleUpon is going to become OnceUpon…………bye!
Ebay want to buy StumbleUpon? We see what will happen with StumbleUpon. Will full with ebay ads I guess.
I’m not crazy about it either. I love Stumble Upon. I hope eBay don’t screw it up.
I think this is a great thing for Stumbleupon! I can’t see eBay doing anything but good for this website – I’m already enjoying skype tremendously – to think my international long distance bill is now virtually zero thanks to them! If Google can buy You Tube why can’t eBay add Stumbleupon to their portfolio? Forget the negativity guys, this can only make the Stumbleupon community bigger and better.
Well since Ebay took over if I use my URL for stumble Upon it takes me to an ad for Russian brides..?
I’ve never visited a site like that so what’s up with that how come my URL goes to a sleazy ad like that..!
Sorry got URL wrong but try it now and see if it takes you to my TJTele Stumble Upon site or not..
I think they also sold too soon and should and could have gotten much more..eventually from a more reputable out fit..
I’m not to “saddened” or disheartened by the purchase of Stumbleupon.
The good thing about it is that they were bought by a major eCommerce/Retailer site that provides tons of money to Americans working their own cottage industries.
I’m glad that they were not bought by a major media conglomerate like News Corp or Viacom. We all know what those companies can do to a community.
Yea I read they are going to focus results for sponsors. But the good thing about the Internet is that when they sell out a new one will come around hoping to get enough fan base to be bought out.I loved stumble and told all my friends about it. I hope enough people leave stumble that they will feel the weight of it’s decision.
well,this is bad.stumbleupon does look promising and fun to be in too
i have really enjoyed my time here at stumbleupon but will reserve judgment until i see what impact this decision will have.
The problem is going to be that now when you hit the stumble button, very often you will be taken to an item being sold on ebay instead. In addition they will be adding ebay search features to the stumble tool bar. It will change stumble from something that was used to introduce new interesting sites to people into something that is just an advertising tool of a horrible company. I call it a horrible company because I have tried to use ebay five times and I got ripped off five times. The people all have positive feedback but when I got the items three of them didn’t work and two items I never even got. I now use amazon.net for my used goods purchases. Anyhow stumble is no longer installed on my computer and as someone above suggested we should all do the same so they can feel the weight of their decision.
Is there any good alternative similar website to StumbleUpon that we can migrate too?
Thanks very much for sharing these useful tools, i’m always on the look out for good tools to make it easier.