StumbleUpon ACaseStudy
Contents
01
Contents
03
Location
37
Achievements
05
CompanyProfile
39
Interviews
09
Branding
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Finance
15
AimsObjectives&Strategies
49
ByTheNumbers
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SWOTAnalysis
51
5By
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CompanyStructure
55
Future
23
Publicity
57
Acknowledgements
27
Press
31
Competition
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Location
SanFrancisco 301 Brannan Street San Francisco, CA 94107 United States of America
NewYorkCity 180 Varick Street New York City, NY 10014 United States of America
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CompanyProfile
What is StumbleUpon? StumbleUpon is a type of search engine that allows its users to select their interests and ‘stumble’ across relating websites. The website states it “will help you discover new and interesting stuff on the web. Tell us what you like, and we’ll introduce you to amazing web pages, videos, photos, and more that you wouldn’t have found on your own” (StumbleUpon 2014). Users can specify their interests even further by liking or disliking pages, which will then determine the websites they are directed to accordingly, giving them more of what they want. It allows users to browse the internet in a more filtered manner, discovering websites they may not have otherwise. “It’s like landing a spaceship on a new planet. That’s the first part. That’s the discovery part. And then the next part is the exploration. You’re getting off the spaceship and you start to explore the planet.” - CEO Mark Bartels, 2014
Where did the idea come from? The company was founded in November 2001 by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance and Eric Boyd. Garrett Camp has spoken of multiple influences that led him to create StumbleUpon. He states that “at the time, I was a huge Google fan... But it was still only good if you actually knew what you wanted to look for” (BBC, 2007). The idea, in his own words, was “how to discover really interesting information without searching for it [and] click a button, [to] find something cool” (BBC, 2007). The start-up began while Camp was finishing post-graduate study in Calgary, Canada. He has said the idea began to form when writing his thesis on information discovery during his degree.
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How did they begin the company? The early years of the company were spent focusing on developing the technology, led by both Camp and Smith. This involved automating the recommendation engine and enabling it to ‘learn’. In 2005, StumbleUpon began to make itself known and, as its popularity grew, it gained interest from angel investors. Google board member Ram Shriram, Half.com founder, Josh Kopelman, and several Silicon Valley investors, gave the company $1.2 million in funding. This meant that in 2006, they were able to move the company to San Francisco where they set up their headquarters, assisted by, Silicon Valley investor, Brad O’Neill.
How did the company develop? After moving to San Francisco, the company launched StumbleUpon video in 2006. This allowed users to stumble upon videos exclusively and it now incorporates videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Google, MySpace, College Humor, Daily Motion, Funny or Die and Meta Cafe. The organisation then began developing StumbleThru, which was launched in 2007. This service allows users to stumble through a specific website, rather than the whole web. Currently, the websites included within this are BBC, Blogger, CNN, College Humor, Flickr, Funny or Die, How Stuff Works, Huffington Post, Meta Café, Rolling Stone, The Onion, Wikipedia, Wired, Wordpress and YouTube. In the same year, StumbleUpon was bought by eBay for $75 million. This was just 5 years after it was initially founded. However, in 2008, its traffic dropped by around 70% on the previous year and Camp and Smith were not happy with the lack of progress that eBay had made. In 2009, the pair, along with other investors, bought back the company for a rumoured $25 million, much 07
less than they had sold it for. It is now an independent, investment-backed start-up once again, with an office in both San Francisco and New York. “There were benefits to being part of eBay, but a different type of person joins a start-up than joining a bigger company. Sometimes it’s beneficial to have that different person.” - Mark Bartels, 2014 Also in 2009, they launched Su.pr. which is a URL shortening service which is used to link to Twitter and Facebook posts. As well as this, the company introduced a new version of the site which allowed users to stumble without signing up. By 2011, the site had reported 20 million users and 1 billion stumbles per month. In 2012, StumbleUpon re-designed its website. Of the update, the main changes were the colour-coded and category-specific stumbles. It also incorporated the ability to stumble through the pages that users’ friends had recently liked, commented on or shared. In the same year, the company also released an update for its iOS app. It brought in the new feature of ‘Stumble DNA’. This represents and colour-codes users’ different interests, therefore, the more varied their stumbles, the more varied in colour their Stumble DNA. This also showed recommended and trending content. “You’re seeing this huge adoption on mobile phones as people shift their habits from desktop consumption to mobile consumption. And we’re coming up with products that, erm, optimize all that.” - Mark Bartels, 2014 As of now, StumbleUpon reports that it has over 30 million registered users. With this, an average of 300 stumbles per month per user and a time spent stumbling totalling at around 7 hours per month. It has over 100,000,000 web pages in its index and over 75,000 advertisers, and its monthly growth in mobiles stumbles is 25%. The company now has around 100 employees split over its San Francisco and New York offices.
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Branding
The design and branding of StumbleUpon has developed and changed much over the years to remain up-to-date and compete with other social networks. The initial design and brand of the website (shown on the right) was very typical of websites emerging in the early millennium, with very basic interactive features, displayed in a simplistic manner.
The first substantial rebrand of the company was in 2009, which saw the website develop massively. As you can see, the design is more simple and clear, with less clutter than the previous interface.
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There were also massive changes to the users’ homepage, which was developed to be more simple and easier to navigate.
Another big change to the interface were the ‘Friends’ and ‘Subscriptions’ tabs. The company introduced sub-navigations with various options to simplify the design and make it more user -friendly.
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In 2011, StumbleUpon released its new and improved rebrand once again; changing its recognised colour scheme and introducing the logo we see today. The rebrand introduced updates to the homepage, the organisation of the interface and its navigation. With the previous design, users noted issues with locating ‘shares’ and ‘favourites’ and difficulties updating their profiles. However, the developed and redesigned interface, with its easy navigation, made the site even more user-friendly. The rebrand came with the addition of the ‘channels’ feature which allows users to subscribe to content streams from brands, publications and celebrities etc.
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2001 - 2011
The development of the StumbleUpon logo and colour scheme was notably a massive change to the company’s brand and overall aesthetic. These changes allowed the company to compete with other bold, simple and eye-catching designs from other online websites. The original concept behind the logo was the idea of pages funnelling through the system, from one user to the next. As you can see, the new logo still follows this concept, connecting the ‘S’ and ‘U’ in more abstract way. The icon is simple, bold and eye-catching, with the orange standing out more than the previous colour scheme; increasingly associated with Facebook and Twitter. The accompanying bold and strong typeface adds to the sophisticated aesthetic of the brand as a whole.
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2011 - Present
The massive change in branding was seen to be a risk at the time as the company was recognised by its previous branding. Changing it so dramatically could have had a negative effect on the impact of the company, as it created a whole new identity, it would take time to build up its remembrance and recognition again. However, as shown by the massive success of the company, the rebrand worked well and was clearly a risk worth taking.
“The people that are here want to make a difference. There’s been a decent amount of turnover over the past few months, in terms of new people coming in, which generates a lot more energy. Once something comes out and comes to fruition, in terms of that effort of the rebranding of things, it starts to re-energize. The design and the way that it looks now mimics the feel in the office from time-to-time.” - Michael Spiegel, Product Designer, 2014
“We have people come into the office… We’ll develop a prototype where people can interact with what it is, click on buttons. It’s not the final product, it’s a secondary application that we use to create that interactivity. We observe how people interact with it, see what makes sense to the user. What makes sense to us, as a designer or as a team, may or may not make sense to somebody coming in and using it for the first time. So you observe their behaviour.” - Michael Spiegel, 2014
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AimsObjectives &Strategies
Aims&Objectives StumbleUpon’s main aim is to introduce its users to “new and interesting things from every corner of the web,” showing them “page after page of unique content” (StumbleUpon, 2014) related to their interests. On every visit, it strives to surprise users with recommended pages from the users they follow, or to “stumble across users who share [their] interests and passions” (StumbleUpon, 2014). StumbleUpon recognises the need to supply people with a site which browses the internet methodically, rather than randomly. Consumers find themselves wanting something more from their online experience; this is what StumbleUpon aims to give them. It is down to the uniqueness of the product which has given the company such great success. The company has noticed that people are consuming more content via mobile phones rather than desktop computers, so there is a need for users to be able to engage with StumbleUpon content on-the-go. “StumbleUpon is the easiest way to discover new and interesting things from across the Web.” - StumbleUpon, 2014 “StumbleUpon wants to be the ‘I don’t know what I want’ button on your phone, TV, computer and everywhere else.” - Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider, 2010 “StumbleUpon is for those times you just want the Internet to show you things. You don’t want to search, you don’t want to browse, you just want wonderful things to appear.” - Jon Mitchell, ReadWrite, 2012
Strategies The way in which StumbleUpon goes about recommending its content to consumers is through understanding their likes and needs. The company understands people’s tastes and interests, as well as the fact these are unique to each user. The organisation invests in the best possible content, of specific interest to its users, and is looking to expand this content even further in the future. 16
SWOTAnalysis
Strengths Uniqueness and Personalisation StumbleUpon is a very unique product. There are other websites which aim to offer similar features, but, what StumbleUpon provides is a unique and personalised discovery experience. It offers specific personalisation to each individual user, making it stand out against its competitors. CEO, Mark Bartels, calls discovery a “precursor to search [where] you’re not exactly sure what you’re looking for but you have certain tastes, you have certain interests” (2014). StumbleUpon therefore offers its users content that is specific to their tastes and interests when they’re not exactly sure what it is they want.
Surprising its Users The company identifies another of its main strengths to be its ability to surprise its users. With the stumble feature, users constantly the content they will discover next; there is the element of surprise with every stumble. Mark Bartels describes this as “the differentiator, that’s what people love about us” (2014). This means that users are suggested content that they may have never found otherwise, opening their eyes to the diverse range of content that is available on the internet.
Weaknesses Lack of everyday use Mark Bartels recognises that StumbleUpon may not be of everyday use to its users, in the same way that Facebook and Twitter...
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...is. It may not be something that is checked regularly throughout the day. He realises that StumbleUpon is used more as an entertainment media but he says that “entertainment is not a dirty word” (2014). He highlights that entertainment can also be educating and enlightening, as well as enjoyable, which is what StumbleUpon aims to be.
Opportunities Video StumbleUpon hopes to further develop the video aspect of the site in the future. In the way that Amazon and Google already have, the company plans to develop the ‘living room experience’, enabling users to engage with StumbleUpon via their televisions. It also aims to explore this further through the acquisition of 5by, a video product which offers users specified content in a similar way to StumbleUpon.
Mobile StumbleUpon also plans to further develop the mobile experience. As people move from desktop consumption to mobile consumption, it is increasingly important to enhance the mobile experience. The organisation is currently developing products optimized for use on mobile devices, making the mobile experience more user-friendly.
Recommendation Mark Bartels believes that “recommendation technology can always get better and the challenge for any recommendation company is [that] the content is constantly changing” (2014). StumbleUpon aims to continue investing in the right content... 19
...recommended to the right people, at the right time. This will lead to the company recommending even better content to its users.
Internationalisation The company aims to internationalise the product more in the future and make it more accessible around the world. Currently, 70% of its traffic is in English-speaking countries such as the US, the UK and Australia. StumbleUpon hopes to make it available in other languages but also introduce country-specific content.
Recommend more content Mark Bartels is also interested in recommending more varied content in the future, stating “I want to recommend applications in the app store, I want recommend music, I want to recommend products� (2014). StumbleUpon aims to go beyond recommending just websites, images and video and explore other areas of the media and consumer products.
Threats Time Employees of StumbleUpon note time as its biggest threat. The site isn’t used in the same way as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or other social networks, which users could spend hours using and socialising on. StumbleUpon is having to compete for the time users spend doing other things. The company is up against many other entertainment platforms, such as Netflix and many others. The way the company differentiates itself from these other products is the community it has developed. Content can be shared and discussed between users; allowing StumbleUpon to stand out amongst other big organisations in the entertainment sector.
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CompanyStructure
Board of Directors
Mark Bartels CEO
David Marks Vice President of Product
Andrew Levine Head of Strategic Partnerships
Belinda Nyugen - Operations Manager
Ben Rosenberg - Product Operations Manager
Teal Newland Vice President of Sales
Benjamin Hardy - Head of Account Management
Will Carey - Social Marketing Manager
Paul Antaki Vice President of Engineering
Aaron Ginn - Head of Growth
Mugdha Sharan & Nancy Phan Senior Product Managers
Edie Dykstra Head of People Operations
Daniel Rickershauser, Kevin Shen & Alyssa Uttereiner - Account Managers
Adrian Castaneda Technical Support and Community Manager
Steven Cheung Revenue and Sale Analytics Manager
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Publicity
Social Media Publicity StumbleUpon uses social media primarily as a way of informing followers of interesting discoveries on the website. Posts on various social networks are used to highlight the many ways in which users can use StumbleUpon and the varying and interesting content to be discovered. Social media platfroms act as a way of releasing information on new and exciting developments at the company, as well as gaining feedback from its followers. Even during the process of this project, the company continued to gain more and more engagement online.
Facebook The company not only uses Facebook to share interesting pages from the website. Its Facebook page also has tabs set up specifically for searching for jobs, looking up events and giving feedback. In this way, it acts as a more interactive and social version of the website. With the page currently having around 648,000 likes, it reaches out to a wide audience easily and instantaneously.
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Twitter Twitter is a great way to start up social conversations; StumbleUpon has done this effectively by creating it’s own account. The business has over 82,000 followers and often tweets links to popular pages on the StumbleUpon website as well as other interesting discoveries from around the web. With Twitter, there is a chance for followers to reply to tweets and for the company to start instant conversations with its followers. Twitter allows StumbleUpon to extend its online social presence even further.
Google+ Google+ is fast becoming another popular social media site and a way of gaining more publicity. Over 15,000 people have StumbleUpon in their ‘circles’ and are following its updates. It is used in a similar way to both Facebook and Twitter but it reaches out to those who use Google+ regularly. Although it isn’t updated often as Facebook and Twitter, it still offers awareness and an insight into what StumbleUpon is about. 25
Youtube StumbleUpon also has a Youtube account, which has well over 1,000 subscribers. Youtube offers the company something that other social media sites do not. There are video features that are updated regularly, including ‘Stumbles of the Week’. This involves some of StumbleUpon’s employees discussing their favourite stumbles from the week, adding the personal touch to the company. It offers viewers an insight into the people that work there and shows the best of what the StumbleUpon experts have discovered. There are also tutorials on how to use StumbleUpon as well as hints and tips. This is a great way of giving easy-tounderstand advice to users, ensuring they’re getting the most out of the experience.
As different social media sites often attract slightly different demographics, it is important for companies to maintain a presence across all social media platforms to ensure they reach the largest audience possible. Using these social media sites, alongside the StumbleUpon website itself, makes information easily accessible for those specifically interested in furthering the StumbleUpon experience. This also adds an additional sense of interactivity product. The company has been incredibly successful in making its social presence varied and extensive. The extent of social media engagement the company has gained, shows just how farreaching StumbleUpon has become. 26
Press
StumbleUpon has featured in many articles and news stories since it began gaining vast recognition and popularity just a few years after it was founded. As an evolving company, it is no surprise that any changes and developments are reported on extensively on some of the most important technology-based websites, such as TechCrunch and Mashable etc. StumbleUpon prides itself on its features on such websites, which is evident in the recent press listed on the Press Centre section of the website.
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No company is resistant to negative press, however, finding negative press on StumbleUpon is difficult, when some arises, the company manages to use the criticism constructively, adapting to appeal to the needs of its audience; “The good news is, we’ve listened to our users and are working hard to deliver features that we know they want...We’re investing heavily in our recommendation platform to build on what is already great technology... and we’re on track to reinvigorate all aspects of Stumbling.” (Talbot, J 2012) Many articles praise StumbleUpon’s development, such as a story on Soshable which noted that the company had surpassed Facebook with the most social media traffic on the web in 2011. It states that with StumbleUpon “a new site has the chance to “go viral” very quickly” and that occasionally, some websites can receive “hundreds of thousands or even millions of views on a single piece of content” (Rucker, 2013). This highlights the positive impact StumbleUpon can have on other websites. It is this kind of acclaim that the company receives regularly online as it continues to develop and its popularity rises. The company also features its recent press releases on its website, which give official information on changes and updates within the company. A few examples of these are: 19 September 2012 Explore the web wherever you are, whenever you want, with StumbleUpon’s new app for iPhone and iPad 2 April 2012 Teal Newland joins StumbleUpon as Vice President of Sales
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27 February 2012 StumbleUpon launches updated app for Android 6 December 2011 StumbleUpon relaunches to make exploring the web easier than ever StumbleUpon has many events running throughout the year that help to further generate press. These vary from announcements about the company, to different events the company puts on. Past examples of these include: 16 April 2013 Warby Parker class trip 28 February 2013 StumbleUpon Discovery Series presents: work by Hap Leonard & Silvia Poloto 6 February 2012 StumbleUpon’s redesign and sneak peek new features 25 August 2010 New York stumblers meet-up 17 June 2010 10 Million stumblers party
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Competition
StumbleUpon employees state that time is its main competitor, however, there are several other websites which aim to offer a similar user experience.
Pinterest is website which allows users to search and discover images and new ideas. The platform is used as a virtual pin board, allowing users to ‘pin’ content their own various ‘boards’ or personal folders. This site is seen as a competitor as, similarly to StumbleUpon, it categorises its content into different fields, such as style/fashion, food, hair & beauty etc. Images are also linked to the external websites of which they originate. Users’ profiles display the various boards they have created and the content within them, providing followers and other users an insight into their interests. StumbleUpon differs in that it allows users explore websites, rather than limiting them to just images. In 2012, Pinterest was reported to have 11.7 million unique users, just 2 years after it was founded. Although both StumbleUpon and Pinterest’s concepts are similar, in that they heavily rely on user generated content, their approaches to how they deliver the content to their users differs considerably. Whilst Pinterest is a platform where users need to know what they’re looking for, StumbleUpon leaves it more to chance. Users of Pinterest can organise their ‘pins’ into categories and boards, whilst StumbleUpon users simply choose a category and StumbleUpon discovers relating content for them. It is argued that StumbleUpon’s redesign and the additional feature of categorised boards of content is an idea influenced by Pinterest’s interface. However, if true, this could be seen as a positive progression for the company as it shows that StumbleUpon is willing to incorporate new ideas and adapt to further appeal to its audience. Pinterest allows users to simply share links or upload photos or videos, however, StumbleUpon allows its users to share links to almost any content on the web.
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Funnyjunk is a website which also aims to categorise its content in order to provide users with interesting content. It focuses its attention on funny and amusing images, GIFs and videos from across the web. In a similar way to StumbleUpon, it has a feature to rate something as ‘funny’ or ‘junk’ with a thumbs up or thumbs down. This is used as a way to direct users to more things they will potentially find of interest. However, StumbleUpon’s stylish aesthetic and more sophisticated content makes it far superior. This could be a reason that, despite both companies launching in the same year, StumbleUpon has been far more successful. Funnyjunk’s design and branding is far less professional, eye-catching and memorable. The colours are dark and contrasting, making it arguably less appealing than StumbleUpon’s simple, bold and stylish aesthetic. Whilst Funnyjunk has memes, gifs and videos from across the web, users still have to search for something they would be interested in, unlike StumbleUpon which does this automatically. From the content provided on Funnyjunk, it is evident the time and effort put in to ensure the content on StumbleUpon if of the highest quality. StumbleUpon produces different pages for every stumble, showing the original source of content, whereas Funnyjunk limits its content, only shows the images and videos, without much acknowledgement of its sources. 33
Reddit is a social media and news content website based in San Francisco and founded in 2005. The news and stories which make it onto the site are rated good or bad by the Reddit community. Stories rated highly make it to the top of the website, whilst those rated poorly reside at the bottom. It is similar to StumbleUpon in the way in which its content is categorised, as it is separated into different areas of interest called ‘subreddits’. This allows users to browse through specific stories of interest to them. Some examples of subreddits include: educational, entertainment and discussion. In 2010, Reddit made the list of Lead411’s ‘Hottest San Francisco Companies’ as was StumbleUpon. The main difference between StumbleUpon and Reddit is their web design and branding. Once again, StumbleUpon’s clear and stylistic design outshines Reddit’s plain design which is less aesthetically pleasing. Its design is practical in many ways but lacks the bright, modern and simple design of leading social network sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Pinterest.
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Digg initially formed in 2004, as a news website showing stories specifically aimed at the internet audience, such as viral and political issues. Prior to this, it was a social news website, allowing users to vote on whether they liked a story or not. This was known as ‘digging’ and ‘burying’. In 2012, Digg was sold in 3 parts and it became the website it is today. The ‘digging’ feature remains and, similarly to StumbleUpon, clicking each story takes the user to the original website. However, doing this then redirects users from the Digg site to its contents’ originator. It also has enhanced capabilities for sharing stories on Facebook and Twitter. A big difference between StumbleUpon and Digg, is the way in which they produce traffic for a website. Digg works by accumulating popularity in order to bring a website to the masses. When it has attained enough recommendations or ‘Diggs’ the page will be promoted on Digg’s front page. However, StumbleUpon treats a webpage slightly differently. With StumbleUpon, the process is continuous; the page will continue to get traffic even if it is not that popular. The StumbleUpon traffic is gradual and longlasting, if people keep voting for the page it will continue to show up to StumbleUpon users, even months after it is uploaded.
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Although the websites mentioned offer similar features to StumbleUpon they appear to lack the consistent quality of content. In addition to this, the concept of content discovery executed by StumbleUpon allows for a unique user experience.
The biggest competitor, according to StumbleUpon employees is time. “Our challenge at StumbleUpon is we want to get you into a habit where this is something that you use on a daily or weekly basis. Because there are so many other entertainment platforms out there.” (Bartels, M 2014) StumbleUpon is competing for the primary attention of its users. The company aims to become one of the main entertainment platforms which its users spend their time on. “You can go onto the web and you can look at Ted Talks, you can go to HBO, you can go to Netflix, you can go to iTunes. There are so many other areas that are competing for your attention. So the way that we counter that is, yes we’re about discovery and exploration, but what we’re also about is building a community.” (Bartels, M 2014).
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Achievements
StumbleUpon has achieved great things in its 12 year history. A huge achievement for the company was in April 2012 when they exceeded 25 million users, gaining almost 1 million a month since having announced reaching 20 million users in October 2011. This shows the extent to which the business has developed and grown massively in popularity. Today, StumbleUpon is said to have over 30 million users. In 2011, StumbleUpon surpassed Facebook in US referral traffic and became the number one source of shared content on the web. This was a massive achievement for the organisation as it was competing for traffic, with the hugely successful company that Facebook is, for many years. The strong content available on StumbleUpon, and the way it is specifically designed for searching and sharing, is what puts it ahead of its rival. Users of StumbleUpon are said to stumble an average of 300 times per month, which shows the time consumers are investing in the product. Time is something StumbleUpon has expressed as a threat to its progress, considering the amount of entertainment sources available both on and offline. However, this amount of stumbles per month shows the company is successfully competing for consumers’ leisure time. In addition to these successes, the company has also achieved many prestigious awards that identify its growth and success, including: Winner - Lovie Award in Entertainment - 2012, 2013 Winner - Lead411’s ‘Hottest San Francisco Companies’ - 2013 Nominated - Webby Award - 2013 Winner - Garrett Camp, founder - MIT Technology Review’s TR35 Award - 2007 38
Interviews
We were fortunate enough to interview four employees at Stumbleupon, all with different roles within the company. The interviews were conducted via Google Hangout, as we were unable to visit the StumbleUpon offices personally. The interviews were incredibly useful and an effective source of further information. Our first interviewee was Mark Bartels, CEO. We then went on to interview Andrew Levine, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Michael Spiegel, Product Designer, and finally, David Marks, Vice President of Product.
We found the interviewing process a very insightful experience. It gave us a deeper understanding of how StumbleUpon works and what it is like to work at the company. We also learnt a lot about each of the employee’s specific role within the business and what each individual likes about the company. It was great to get an insider’s perspective on StumbleUpon and learn more about the organisation as a whole.
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Name: Mark Bartels Office: San Francisco Job Title: CEO
The Role Mark’s role mainly consists of dealing with any issues unable to be resolved by other members of staff, making key decisions and deciding what’s best for the company, whilst ensuring the team stays focused and is aware of the end-goal. Job Perks He enjoys working with a variety of interesting people through discussions and brainstorms, working together to reach the same goal and promoting web content which may have previously been undiscovered. Why StumbleUpon? Mark loves helping people discover and explore great content on the web and has always been excited about StumbleUpon as a distribution engine. “Sometimes as CEO, you’ve got to make a decision as to which direction to go in and both could be really good. If you don’t have someone who’s prepared to make a decision, that company can stagnate and can end up trying to do too much. You’ve got to be prepared to make those decisions” (2014). 41
Name: Andrew Levine Office: New York Job Title: Head of Strategic Partnerships
The Role Andrew deals with anything partnership related; including publishing partners, helping to drive traffic to sites in return for the promotion of the company. As well as this, supporting the 5by team and dealing with public relations and marketing communications. Job Perks He enjoys the ability to work in an entrepreneurial manner and the freedom to work on his own initiative; including the ability to travel, meet clients and attend different conferences. As well as this, he enjoys the personal Uber credit and free meals provided by the organisation. Why StumbleUpon? Andrew feels he has an incredible boss, Teal Newland, and enjoys working closely with her. He believes StumbleUpon is a really good product with a strong brand direction, he likes the size of the company (70-80 people) and the start-up vibe. “There is no average day at StumbleUpon… No day is the same. I wake up with a very full inbox and usually start there. I find myself often out of the office, whether that’s at other offices, whether that’s at lunch meetings, whether that’s travelling to events like SXSW or CES… it’s a lot of people-heavy activities” (2014).
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Name: Michael Spiegel Office: San Francisco Job Title: Product Designer
The Role Michael’s role includes working on the different platforms of the StumbleUpon experience, such as mobile, but primarily focusing on the advertising aspect (Paid Discovery). As well as this, he is tasked with updating and refining creative campaigns, conducting data-testing, and working on initial designs for projects, wireframing, and creating visual breakdowns. Job Perks Michael appreciates that travel expenses are sometimes paid for, free gym memberships are offered, which encourages a healthy lifestyle, there are team activities, and people outside of the company come in to speak which gives a whole new perspective on the industry. In addition, he likes the company’s involved with the art community, as StumbleUpon often buys and exhibits art pieces. Why StumbleUpon? He appreciates the opportunity to work with other talented designers at the company, the chance to make a big impact within the team, and likes the challenges of the role, as well as the free breakfast and lunch! “I spend a lot of time on the research part of things, really creating the foundation for a lot of decision-making, otherwise 43
you’re not backing it up with relevant information. It turns into ‘this looks better than that’ and that’s not really a good decision-making process” (2014).
Name: David Marks Office: San Francisco Job Title: Vice President of Product
The Role David’s role incorporates idea generation, planning new features and the strategies used to implement these. In addition, he devises ways in which to measure success, assists people in evaluating ideas, sets the direction for the product team, as well as manages the designers and product managers. Job Perks He appreciates the free healthcare, Uber credit, which is useful for staying late in the office and the buffet-style catered lunch which encourages good conversation between employees during lunchtime. Why StumbleUpon? David loves the startup environment and the potential for development it allows. He enjoys being surrounded by a motivated and talented team and with a strong alignment within the team, a big impact can be made. “It’s very dynamic. I work with engineers, I work with the executive team, I work with marketing, I work with customers, I work with end-users, I work with designers… There’s quite a lot that happens” (2014). 44
Finance
StumbleUpon makes its money through ‘Paid Discovery’. It states that it “delivers the right traffic directly to your site or content: no clicking through ads or links. 100% engagement, 100% of the time” (StumbleUpon, 2014). StumbleUpon connects brands with its users in a way unlike anything else. Businesses can determine the specific content they wish to promote by the URL they submit, without creating additional adverts; the page becomes the ad. Brands are also able to specify the demographic which are able to stumble upon their content. StumbleUpon says that “up to 5% of all Stumbles are reserved for Paid Discovery where you - our advertisers - directly insert your web page into the user experience” (StumbleUpon, 2014). Paid Discovery works by following these 4 clear steps: 1. Brands submit their URLs via the Paid Discovery page of the StumbleUpon website 2. They select their targeting so that the audience will meet their demographic 3. StumbleUpon puts their URL within the Stumble feature and new audiences are then met 4. Their engaging content is highlighted directly and frequently. StumbleUpon promises to give brands guaranteed visitors, position their content within other relevant pages and work on a pay-per-unique-visitor basis.
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StumbleUpon has progressed hugely since receiving its initial $1.2 million in funding. By the time eBay bought the company in 2007, it is said to have been worth in excess of $75 million, highlighting the financial success of the company at the time. In 2012, StumbleUpon made a rumoured “$30 million in revenue” (Fiegerman, 2013), most likely due to the redesign of its website and features, as well as the update to its iOS app. The company also revealed that it expected to “grow revenue between $35 million to $40 million” (Meyers, 2013) in 2013. It is clear from these figures that StumbleUpon is hugely successful financially and has been for many years. The company grows every year with it changes and developments, providing a more unique and exciting user experience. With StumbleUpon’s plans for further development, it is likely to grow and progress even further, allowing it to gain even more revenue in years to come.
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ByTheNumbers
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5by
5by is a video application that gives users personalised videos; depending on their mood, social interests and even the time of day. The consistent stream of video content is matched to the individual to ensure they always find videos they will enjoy from across the whole web.
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Founder and CEO of the company, Greg Isenberg, launched the website in March 2013, along with the rest of the 5by team. Isenberg states that the website has curated over 100,000 videos. In its first months, 5by was handled by a small group of people, but towards the end of 2013, it was announced that StumbleUpon would be acquiring the company and continue to develop it as a standalone product. This was only 11 months after 5by had been initially founded. The 6-person 5by team were moved from their office in Montreal to StumbleUpon’s San Francisco headquarters, to act as a small division of the larger company. On the acquisition, StumbleUpon’s CEO, Mark Bartels, said “it’s about getting 5by out there and introducing it to the community” (TechCrunch, 2013). In 2012, StumbleUpon made $30 million in revenue and began looking to make a deal, like that made later with 5by. Bartels believes that video will account for the majority of online content consumed by 2016, which also encouraged the move made by StumbleUpon. In January 2014, StumbleUpon announced the launch of the new 5by app for iOS and Android, which integrates the personalisation aspect of viewing videos. It creates playlists of videos and allows users to rate the content they discover. The more interaction with the app; like skipping a video or rating a liked one, the more videos the user will discover that are specifically personalised to them. Greg Isenberg said that “our focus right now is delivering the best possible experience possible on iOS/Android but we’re definitely thinking and investing in ways to build for the 10 ft experience” (TechCrunch, 2013). Whilst talking about the future of 5by, he also said that their next move is “more personalisation and continuing to find new ways to bring our users the best possible videos out there” (TechCrunch, 2013).
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Future
As previously mentioned, StumbleUpon is said to now have over 30 million users, with its users stumbling an average of 300 times per month. It is clear the company is incredibly successful within its area and has many great opportunities for further development in the pipeline. As a forward-thinking company, it is always progressing and adapting with new emerging technologies. With mobile technology being an increasingly large part of many peoples day-to-day lives, enhancing the StumbleUpon mobile experience will make it all the more user friendly. By making the site available in other languages and introducing countryspecific content, the company will also develop its international user-base. StumbleUpon is consistently developing its user experience and with that, the company plans to implement many further enhancements to the StumbleUpon interface. Developments to the video aspect of the company will enable the organisation to compete with Google, Amazon and Netflix, working alongside smart TV technology to develop a ‘living room experience’. Through working with 5by, the company will be able to develop video content efficiently and effectively. The company’s additional plans will improve the recommendation technology as well as develop the content available to its users. As well as this, the company hopes to introduce different types of recommended content, such as apps, music and other products. With StumbleUpon’s already extensive user-base, additional enhancements to the discovery experience will allow the company to expand and develop more and more in years to come. It is clear that with the many new strategies and plans in place, the company has an extremely exciting future and we look forward to seeing what comes next! 56
Acknowledgements
We would like to take this opportunity to express our great appreciation to those who have made this project possible.
We would like to thank Andrew Levine, for his enthusiasm throughout the project, for all his help with research, as well as organising the amazing interviews we were able to conduct. He was a great interviewee, offering great insights into the company. Andrew was an amazing person to work with and we appreciate him taking the chance on a group of unknown students from England. We couldn’t have done this without his help and support.
A massive thank you to Mark Bartels, for taking time out of his hectic schedule to offer amazing answers to our questions, and being a joy to meet and work with.
Thank you to David Marks and Michael Spiegel, for also offering to be interviewed and giving different perspectives on the company and their roles. Their input was a great addition to the study, and we thank them very much for their cooperation.
We would also like to thank Miranda Howitt for her help with interview scheduling, photographs, and other required information. She has been a fantastic and reliable support throughout the process.
Finally, we would like to thank our tutor, Richard Vickers, for his continuous support, expertise and guidance prior to and during the project.
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Florence Thomas Laura Perry Dhruti Vithani University of Lincoln United Kingdom May 2014