After 16 years online, StumbleUpon is officially no more
After 16 years online StumbleUpon, a social sharing platform that predated both Facebook and Twitter, has officially closed its doors.
StumbleUpon was a random content generator. A user would click the stumble buttons and be taken to a random website, app, meme, forum, etc. that the platform deemed they’d find interesting.
According to co-founder Garrett Camp, who also co-founded Uber, since its inception in 2001 StumbleUpon served 60 billion “stumbles” to over 40 million users.
On 24th May, Camp announced via Medium.com that the platform would be shutting down on 30th June. Yesterday, StumbleUpon’s official Twitter account signed off with:
“Today is the last day to hit that Stumble button. Thank you to our dear Stumblers for joining us in internet history.“
It’s not quite the end though. All of StumbleUpon’s remaining users will see their accounts migrated to Mix.com, which is a new social sharing platform founded by Camp.
According to Camp, Mix.com will “combine social and semantic personalization into one streamlined experience.” Camp proclaims the new platform will help users find “obscure but interesting content” that has been recommended from within their social networks.
While StumbleUpon has been confined to an internet graveyard that hosts luminaries like Napster, About.com and AltaVista, Camp will be hoping the new social sharing platform can give some of the predominant social sharing platforms of the day a run for their money.
Early reactions to the new platform have ranged from intrigue to characterising the new platform as a Pinterest and StumbleUpon clone.
As is often customary on the internet whenever change is announced, some internet users commenting on Camp’s announcement were less than pleased to hear of StumbleUpon’s demise.
One user states, “not only [does Mix.com not] provide the [functionality] I am interested in, but [it] actively switches to a format…I do not like and am not interested in at all.”
Meanwhile, another user stated, “Terrible idea. SU was great, it was unique, it was useful, it was easy to use. What you have made with Mix is a new Pinterest. Why do you expect the same success? I don’t understand this decision at all, and I’m saddened.”
According to online competitive analysis tools, Mix.com currently attracts 723,000 visits per month.