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StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

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Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#21

Post by reaperducer »

whack wrote: post #17
majani wrote: post #14

I've been mulling a form of charity where instead of closing down a once famous website, you give it to some talented developers in a poorer country to maintain it remotely. There are good developers in third world countries who get paid a pittance for basically busy work. They would certainly appreciate the challenge and money around a service like StumbleUpon. What do you think of this idea and is there anyone doin…

"Once famous" websites are rarely ever thrown away completely. They are often scrapped for parts, and any nugget of value that still remains, is sold to the highest bidder. This is often incompatible with letting the service continue running as usual. For example, the article mentions that the StumbleUpon cofounder is currently working on Mix, and all StumbleUpon accounts will be migrated over to Mix. Most likely, th…

>"Once famous" websites are rarely ever thrown away completely. They are often scrapped for parts, and any nugget of value that still remains, is sold to the highest bidder.

Even sites that are completely healthy and thriving sometimes disappear just because someone drives a dumptruck full of cash into the lobby.

I once turned down a spammer who wanted to buy one of my site's e-mail lists (very targeted, high-value). When I turned him down, he approached my partners and tried to buy the whole site. He told them he was going to shut the site down and just use the e-mail list.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#22

Post by egfx »

dmschulman wrote: post #2

StumbleUpon was one of the first web services I came across that actually provided a new and exciting way to traverse the internet. I'll never forget the sense of discovery and wonder and amusement it provided, my only other sources for cool and interesting content were things my friends would share with me or sites I would find via an article/web page. StumbleUpon took me out of my "filter bubble" if you will and in…

Yep. Stumble Upon was great for that. Using it was like pressing buttons on a slot machine. I think Stumble Upon lost it's way soon after they dropped the Firefox toolbar in favor of the integrated iFrame. Only Yahoo! when it first came out, made me feel the way SU did.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#24

Post by jclos »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #20
jclos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was considering dropping Reddit and going back to StumbleUpon, because I realised that it is very hard to use reddit without making it another filter bubble, which defeats the purpose of information discovery. Plus, the fact that SU doesn't have a toxic comment section makes it better imho. I am sad that it is gone.

Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale. I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but... 1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verific…

To me it's the random jumping from site to site via browser extension that really made SU worth it. I can discover stuff through reddit, but the presence of a comment section kind of ruins it since I am not disciplined enough to ignore it.

As to fixing reddit, I agree with your changes, but you'd run into the same issue all candidates for remplacement ran into: reddit delivers value through the network effect. You need users to get value. You need value to get users. Basically unless you can kickstart the replacement with a shitton of existing data, or unless reddit fucks up as much as digg did before, it's hard to compete.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#26

Post by simonbarker87 »

So SU tangentially provided me with the singularly most embarrassing moment of my life about 9 years ago.

So we are showing our office to a design company a few buildings over and just chatting about the business and the stuff we make (we were all starting out and in our early 20s), there were lots of prototype bits around and adhesives and stuff, basically the office had a slight chemical smell to it.

One of the guys from the design agency says “That smell, reminds me of inaudible half mumble, in my spare time I like to surf”. My dumb dumb brain decides he means he likes to surf the web and so I reply with “oh, you should check out Stumble Upon, it’s a pretty cool service for finding new stuff on the web”.

Everyone looks at me like I’m a total idiot but I just carried on as normal because my brain is still thinking: surfing the web and not the much more obvious surfing with wet suits that smell like our office does. I’m guessing the bit I didn’t hear was the word wetsuits.

Anyway, as soon as we show them out it dawns on me what a socially awkward penguin I just managed to be, I still die a little inside every time I remember the bemused look on his face after my comment. Funnily enough we never did do any work with those guys.

Anyway, thanks Stumble Upon!

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#27

Post by dghughes »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #20
jclos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was considering dropping Reddit and going back to StumbleUpon, because I realised that it is very hard to use reddit without making it another filter bubble, which defeats the purpose of information discovery. Plus, the fact that SU doesn't have a toxic comment section makes it better imho. I am sad that it is gone.

Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale. I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but... 1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verific…

YouTube is as bad or worse as reddit. The more you look at one topic the more it is shown to you. You end up in a feedback loop the same thing.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#28

Post by overkalix »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #26

So SU tangentially provided me with the singularly most embarrassing moment of my life about 9 years ago. So we are showing our office to a design company a few buildings over and just chatting about the business and the stuff we make (we were all starting out and in our early 20s), there were lots of prototype bits around and adhesives and stuff, basically the office had a slight chemical smell to it. One of the guy…

This is the most embarrassing moment of your life? You amateur.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#29

Post by RpFLCL »

I loved stumble upon until the pages I was shown veered from my interests and began to feel like either spam or obvious paid content. It was annoying and the issue that eventually pushed me off after 3-4 years of use.

I'm a bit sad to see this news. Maybe my view became jaded, but with this timing I have to wonder if it's related to GDPR. A profile of your interests and favorite sites is the kind of information a company like CA would have been interested in buying.

Re: StumbleUpon closing after 16 years, accounts can be migrated to Mix

#30

Post by subpixel »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #20
jclos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was considering dropping Reddit and going back to StumbleUpon, because I realised that it is very hard to use reddit without making it another filter bubble, which defeats the purpose of information discovery. Plus, the fact that SU doesn't have a toxic comment section makes it better imho. I am sad that it is gone.

Urgh, Reddit is indeed an addictive, toxic timesink of a filter bubble. It reminds me of Slashdot, but on a much larger scale. I have been reflecting on ways to fix it lately. I was imagining something like reddit, but... 1) not completely anonymous / pseudonymous. Maybe a profile photo with you holding a sign with your username for verification (like certain subreddits do), first name, and SMS / phone number verific…

I live in a particular neighborhood in a particular large US city, and our subreddit is a really useful source of local info.
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