Group items tagged

Chris Crum (the author) writes about a rumored upcoming Digg toolbar incorporating random search, and asks if this is bad news for Stumbleupon, as that is the service's key feature. Perhaps, but Crum hasn't given us reason enough to think so. Randomness, by itself, isn't a big deal. Webrings had incorporated it into their code long before there was a Stumbleupon. Carefully weightened randomness is what Stumbleupon does. Stumbleupon offers a blogging platform, albeit a seriously flawed one. Digg does not. Those who submit content to Digg risk loss of membership if the content proves to be unpopular enough; so far as I know, Stumbleupon users don't have the same worry, outside of a little political whackiness in the fora. I'm left with the impression that Crum repeats somebody who has read too much into too little, having little familiarity with the capabilities of the SU system, and with the policy differences between the two sites.

Another blog at Stumbleupon, this one with more of an even more of an emphasis on photography, and one reviews of other stumbleblogs. Much more pleasant than just looking at a stack of links, wouldn't you agree? jjjunebug is caile-girl's mother. (See bookmark, immediately above)

See somebody doing something creative with her blog on Stumbleupon. Do you find yourself wanting to slow down and take the time to really read, not just this blog, but the pages it links to, because you're having a good time? You get a real feeling of the presence of the other person on the other side of that screen, don't you?

Bringing this down to the bottom line, yet another blogger shares his experience, of watching people bounce away without doing much of anything on his site. How much is traffic like that to a site, and how much will somebody be willing to pay to keep getting more of it? As the author says, "The problem is that when I stumble I am in the mood for some fast action. I don't want to be bothered with heavy reading and just want to be amused." a spirit that, as somebody in one of the sites bookmarked above argues, Stumbleupon's business model gives the company and its management a perverse short term incentive to encourage. But can one encourage impatience and then, moments later, hope that impatience will suddenly vanish the moment a visitor reaches a sponsor's site? Or does behavior, once reinforced, tend to linger? Does the company really expect those sponsors to not notice that their bottom line isn't being helped, just because they hope it will, and assume that it must?

A very brief testimonial from another blogger.

The article points us toward a reason why the business model alluded to in links above (paid for stumbles) is ultimately unsustainable - those visiting bounce through without doing much more than briefly glancing at the pages they visit, very often. This is plausible. People get enthusiastic about their new toy, they get a rhythm going, and they don't want to stop.

The blogger GigaOm argues that Digg would benefit from gaining Stumbleupon's content and users. The question he leaves unanswered is whether the SU users would be likely to stay, given semi-recent press about Digg. If one company takes over another, which of the two sets policy on the acquired company's site?

Alex Laburu raises a serious point about Stumbleupon; that perverse incentives are built in to the system by SU's business model, in which the company makes money, not from visits to blogs on their system, but by getting paid for "stumbles" - random visits to sponsor websites taking place through their system. Under such a model, Laburu argues, a well written blog costs the company money, because it is a blog visitors are less likely to leave soon via a stumble - and those following its links aren't stumbling. He raises a good point (among others), one that should lead SU users to view with concern the supposedly good feature that is the absence of advertising on our blogs on SU, because it provides SU admins with a short term incentive to side with those misusing the system at the expense of those using it constructively. Which does leave us with the question of how Diigo is making its money, does it? One might ask if many of the users bring this sort of thing upon themselves - listen in on the screaming when the very possibility of introducing advertising is raised, on some sites, as if the hosting service didn't need to make money. Perhaps when the subject arises here - Diigo is still in Beta as I write this - some of us might want to speak in support of that very sensible source of revenue for a company we'd like to evolve in a healthier direction than that being taken by some of its competition, at the moment.

Not only allegations that a small group of hyperaggressive users (50 in total) are burying posts on Digg, but with a little unexplained hacking being alluded to, the members of that local cabal are allegedly named. The question this raises being how much faith we should put in strangers who don't explain their methods - but then, if they did, we wouldn't be allowed to link to this article, would we? The fact that a search turned up 16900 hits for "Digg" and "bury brigade" does make this a little easier to believe, though, and a little more of a source of worry for the Stumbleupon user when he hears a suggestion that Digg take over that other service.

WARNING: Mild profanity appears once at the other end of this link. (Word for excrement used to indicate that something is objectionably nonsensical) News about Zaibatsu, who was Digg's top user at the time of his banning. Message of the story: anybody who submits a link to Digg is at the mercy of the owner of the site at the other end of the link, because Digg will not listen to any explanations, no matter how reasonable, and no matter how innocent the action taken on the part of the user. Something for any SU user who likes GigaOm's suggestion of a Digg acquisition of Stumbleupon (linked to, below) to think about, because that very activity is at the core of what almost all SU users do.