StumbleUpon Is Shutting Down

The social media network StumbleUpon is shutting down on June 30, 2018. StumbleUpon users are being encouraged to join Mix, another website by the makers of StumbleUpon.

For the past 16 years, StumbleUpon has been a website that you can submit a URL to. You add a topic to it, along with keywords, and it’s put in a list of other related URLs. Then, you can click through randomly submitted URLs on the same topic, and vote them up or down–or not at all. The traffic from StumbleUpon could actually be a lot–but since the pages that are Stumbled were random and the visitors just came across them via the StumbleUpon network, they typically didn’t stay that long and never really converted.

StumbleUpon Was Gameable

Over the years, I typically would stumble thousands of URLs every year, and had personally built up a lot of contacts or “friends” on the network. While I had built up a large network, I never really was a power user or not even close to being one of the top users on StumbleUpon. However, I did at one point figure out the StumbleUpon algorithm, so to speak. In fact, there was a page that listed the top Stumbles or top URLs for each category. That list would show the thumbnail or avatar (profile photo) and a link to the profile of the user who was the top user for that post.

What was the trick of the StumbleUpon algorithm to get that top spot?

Well, all one had do to was Stumble or vote on the top URL for each category, and write a comment about it. Literally, the user with the longest comment (longest number of characters in their comment) would instantly become the top user for that URL. At one point, I was able to be the top user for every single URL in every single category. Needless to say, it was more of a ‘personal achievement’ than anything else, as it didn’t really give me any perks. I had thought that it would bring me more followers, more connections, or more traffic to my profile on StumbleUpon. It did not.

Well, after 16 years, the past few years I have to admit that I’ve not been very active. Although I have still kept my account there. And after 16 years, as social media networks come and go, this is one of the last of the good ones. So, it’s bittersweet for me to say:

Farewell, StumbleUpon.