StumbleUpon is About to Crash and Fall on Their Sword
By MoreMerchant on Apr 17, 2008 in Blogging, Featured, Misc, stumble
As my readers know I have been an avid support of Stumbleupon. I even donated money to them since I believed in what they were accomplishing through their great idea. I have promoted them to all of you many times. I loved Stumble.
Now they are trying to crack down on spam. Great, I hate spam as much if not more than anyone. I have fought spam on this site and on the web in many ways. Now for some reason Stumble thinks they should stop my account.
I assume they are saying that I have spammed. Now if sending a link to a friend is spam, than what good is Stumble? That would mean Stumble IS SPAM by design. They mentioned to me that anyone participating on Digitalpoint is a violation of their terms. I am not sure why this forum is a violation, but I have not participated on this forum … EVER. So they don’t even know why they are blocking me.
If giving a thumbs up to a friend’s great blog post is spam, than Stumble IS Spam by design. Also people often add their own site to Stumble. If you write a great post you should be able to tell someone. Isn’t that what all forms of writing does. If I write a good book, I will tell a friend.
I lovED Stumble. They have gone off the deep end by attacking one of their biggest supporters.
*** Update ***I just noticed that my post yesterday says that Stumbleupon is making changes and it isn’t as good as it once was. Interesting that this morning I get banned. Here is the post How to Grow Your Blog .
Thinkjayant | Apr 17, 2008 | Reply
Looks like the same story gonna happen as with windows beating piracy unsuccessfully. Only the genuine users get the suffering by going through additional software checks to prove the fact that they are actually “genuine”… great…
So what you gonna do… dig into the reason or create a new account?
MoreMerchant | Apr 17, 2008 | Reply
I am not sure. I may bail on Stumbleupon all together. I like the idea behind it but you are exactly right. So I need to decide if it is worth joining again or now.
I definitely won’t pay them again.
esvl | Apr 19, 2008 | Reply
Strange for them to just ban your account like that.
Susie | Apr 21, 2008 | Reply
Wow, if that leaves you baffled, as a fairly new blogger, I am totally baffled. How are new folks supposed to get the word out if they don’t send it themselves, number 1 - until I joined Entrecard, and ran across the threads in there, I didn’t really Stumble, I have done so periodically.
Honestly, if you are new - how else can you? As you said, it’s word of mouth. That’s insane they would do that to you.
It’s almost as if they only want to allow the “top dogs” authority.. and if you are not in that circle..well to hell with ya!
Jack | Apr 22, 2008 | Reply
I am fairly cetain that Stumble is now owned by Ebay. I elieve they bought it a year ago. Ebay has a poor track record of incorporating new “cultures”. PayPal is their only real success. Skype is up on the bargain basement auction block. I was with a startup based in a 200 year old barn. We knew our niche market, went public and five years later were acquired by a Fortune 100. Within two years they had trashed the business. We were cowboys, our clients were cowboys and the fortune 100 wanted to apply a “suit” business model. AOL and Warner could apply here.
alexa ropiey | Jun 22, 2008 | Reply
With all the credit card websites its great to learn that you have written about some great companies. Usally someone comes on here to say negative stuff. I am responding because i had some positive experiences with bankrate ans selectcreditcard they both provided me with great service.
thank you