StumbleUpon’s time has come and gone. Still, they’ve got something in the Mix for old Stumblers.

Stumbling since 2002

StumbleUpon will cease at the end of June.

As a ‘recommendation engine’, it used to be big. It was a staple on content-site social links. It could drive traffic and launch virals. It was a leader in using big data to customise individual experiences.

eBay saw StumbleUpon’s potential, and acquired it for $75 Million in 2007. Founder Garret Camp regained control years later. But he couldn’t save it… or could he?

Fold or move

According to Camp, StumbleUpon catered to over 40 million users, and served up nearly 60 billion stumbles. But, it apparently slipped from modern content discovery trends.

The homepage now says it’s ‘moving to Mix on June 30th.’ This seems to mean that remaining StumbleUpon accounts are getting auto-migrated to a new platform.

Next, Mix

Mix.com—another Camp creation—claims to be ‘All your favourite things. All in one place.’  He thinks we still ‘need better tools to help us filter through… content on the web’

Camp says his team has learned ‘that while simplicity and serendipity is important, so is enabling contextual curation (i.e. “cool space photos”) instead of just clicking “I like it”.’

Mix sounds like it might be a next-gen StumbleUpon, with more machine learning and a bit of Pinterest thrown in. Do you consider this move a genuine migration, or a stealthy rebrand while adding features?

Copy Transmission is a Melbourne-based agency :: Better Brands. Loud & Clear.