Seth Godin linked to a new psesudo bookmarking site, StumbleUpon. The idea is that you can surf through sites by category, then rate them. I’m only blogging it because this exact concept failed during the bubble — it was called SpotOn.com and had a lot more going for it that Stumble. But then again Stumble has much better graphic design, so I guess we’ll wait and see.
The real story here is whether a business model based on finding new sites can be successful. One of the web’s hidden truths is that most users (90%+) don’t “surf.” Do people still call it surfing, or did I just date myself? Seriously, just because everyone you know sits around an office all day checking out BoingBoing doesn’t mean that it’s a mainstream phenomenon. The mainstream user starts on MSN.com (1 guess why), then clicks her browser bookmarks to reach the 3-5 sites that interest her. If they need to find something, they Google it. Not much room for new sites in that flow. I’m just saying..
Comments from the Old Blog
I don’t think the business model is around finding new sites – it’s around affinity marketing.
Once StumbleUpon gathers a critical mass of individuals who frequent specific sites, they’ve got the basis for extraordinarily targeted ad syndication. StumbleUpon will (ultimately) have a wonderfully rich database of demographics and preferences that are worth $$ to advertisers.
What they lack is the relationship with advertisers that someone like Feedburner is working now to establish. A Feedburner + StumbleUpon partnership would be very powerful.
Posted by: bob corrigan on April 9, 2006 06:53 PM
When people say “I’m just saying…” you can bet they’ve just made a serious criticism. Its kind of like when a Sopranos character starts a sentence “All due respect…” You’re pretty much guaranteed what follows will be tremendously offensive.
Posted by: Aaron Yowell on April 11, 2006 12:33 PM