Stumbling down the rabbit hole

I recently met with the folks at StumbleUpon to discuss possible marketing partnerships. They were a 12-person company in May when they were bought by eBay and now are pushing 20 but still work in a single open room in downtown San Francisco. The team looked at me with mild interest when I walked in but quickly went back to their keyboards and with headphones on, returned to their work. The people I met with were so nice and enthusiastic about their product I immediately wanted to work for them. To be fair, I told them that I’d never heard of or used StumbleUpon and in fact hadn’t really even used a single social bookmarking site.

They went into their short pitch about how StumbleUpon is so much more than bookmarking; it’s discovery rather than ranking. When you join, you are asked to create a profile where you tell SU what your interests are. Then you start “stumbling,” pages from the Internet that have been given a thumbs up by the Stumble community are served to you based on your interests. In the first few minutes I found a satellite map of the Earth to show where it's light and where it's dark, an incredible portfolio of black and white photographs taken of wild animals in Africa, a fun Jackson Pollock type interactive painting game, and a blog about a town in Greece. Each page I give a thumbs up to gets shown to more people like me and the system becomes more intelligent about what I like. There's no ranking so there's no incentive to be anything but genuine. In other words, no one’s trying to out do each other and the popularity of a page is only relevant to those whose interests it matches.

The community aspect is really compelling. It’s easy to share and pass on pages you like – which include games, blogs, videos, pictures, news, etc – and to find friends based on what you both like. You can blog about things you’ve seen or read with one click and instead of a link, it’s the actual page. As someone who has become increasingly annoyed with Facebook and its superficiality, this seems really cool. It keeps track of what I’ve like, let’s me see what my friends like and gives everyone the opportunity to be discover, comment on and curate content.

Facebook, by comparison, tricks you into thinking that something personal and customized is going on – someone said you’re cute or has given you a present or thinks you’re alike or posted something personal on your page – when in reality, everyone got that message. The system requires you to spam all your friends before you can retrieve your highly impersonal message. It reminds me of what was happening in email in the late nineties when a friend would blast their entire address book with some joke, hoax or gross picture. I got to the point where I sent emails to friends asking them to take me off the stupid list or replied with evidence that their forward to sign a petition was a hoax. That’s not connecting or even sharing, it’s being a human billboard with flashing neon lights that doesn’t care what’s being said or who’s hearing it as long as people are looking at you. Meanwhile, Facebook and its dozens of independent apps are collecting data about you and your friends.

A few months ago, I thought Facebook was cool and actually pitched it to a couple of people (who have probably joined and spent more time on it than me) but haven't been sold on the quality of what's being shared. Why bite someone as a vampire or throw a snowball at them? I’m amazed at how active my friends are on it! I get ten invitations a week to fill out quizzes or see the drawing they posted using the crude tools on Facebook that makes it look a two year old drew it. They send cards and hotness points and form silly groups like "Every time you join this group god kills a kitten!" I actually do like looking at photos that people upload but obviously people have a lot of time on their hands.

StumbleUpon is less about billboarding though and more about falling down the rabbit hole. I discovered VideoJug, a site that shows you how to do everything, through video. From avoiding getting ripped off by a mechanic to keeping your arm from getting trapped when cuddling in bed, users offer answers to life’s challenges with a video. There’s something for everyone! I also recently went to an event for girl geeks and one of the speakers was Leah Culver, a totally beautiful developer who founded Pownce with Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg. I haven't used it yet but it's all about sharing things with your friends - real things, not made up things like hotness points. Call me crazy but I want food at the end of my fork, not just a poke in the mouth.