WebProNews

Tag: 5by

  • StumbleUpon No longer Has A CEO, Is Part Of Expa’s Mix.com (Also 5by Is Shutting Down)

    It would appear that StumbeUpon is no longer a company with a CEO. There hasn’t really been a lot of clarity around this in recent months, but that appears to be the state of things.

    Over two years ago, StumbleUpon (under CEO Mark Bartels) made its first acquisition with 5by – a video discovery service that operated much like StumbleUpon itself, but strictly for videos. It was a pretty cool app, particularly once it became Chromecast compatible, and seemed to be a major part of where StumbleUpon was headed.

    On Thursday, an email was sent to 5by users saying that it is shutting down. While I was well aware that StumbleUpon has been going through some changes, I can’t say I saw that coming.

    Digging a bit after receiving that email, I discovered much to my surprise neither Bartels nor 5by CEO Greg Isenberg are even at the company anymore. I’ve seen no reports of either leaving, which seems strange to me particularly in the case of Bartels. We’re talking about the CEO of what is one of the web’s biggest drivers of social media traffic to websites. If he left the company, it seems like we should’ve heard about it.

    As you may know, co-founder Garrett Camp announced in August that he was returning to the company, purchasing the majority stake, and advising management. He wrote:

    Some difficult changes to the product and company will be needed, and these changes will take time. But I strongly believe that systems like StumbleUpon play an important role in helping people discover what matters most to them. I’m excited to work with the team on product once again, getting back-to-basics and improving recommendations, while exploring potential synergies between SU and Expa.

    He noted that he is still focused on being CEO of Expa, his startup studio (which counts Uber among its companies by the way).

    While layoffs were known, there was no mention of the departure of Bartels, Isenberg, or even 5by at all. According to Bartel’s LinkedIn profile, he exited StumbleUpon in September. I’ve also learned that Isenberg has been gone since June.

    So what does that mean for StumbleUpon? Well, Camp actually announced what is going on with StumbleUpon on October 30th. Apparently nobody (at least in the media – myself included) noticed it.

    Expa has begun working on a new discovery platform called Mix.com, which aims to “connect the curious with the creative, delivering personalized recommendations one click at a time.”

    That sounds exactly like StumbleUpon.

    “Mix will provide a modern and elegant way to discover the best content liked by friends and experts, from across the web to your mobile device,” Camp wrote.

    He also said that StumbleUpon is officially part of the Expa family and that the StumbleUpon team will be joining forces with Expa to create Mix.com, “bringing with them everything learned serving 50 billion recommendations to millions of people.”

    According to this announcement, StumbleUpon users will be able to use the site like normal and it will “continue to operate as always” as Expa explores new product ideas for Mix. My guess is that StumbleUpon will go away once Mix is ready for primetime.

    While plenty of websites still get a ton of traffic from StumbleUpon, it’s clear (and made even more so by the lack of coverage around this) that StumbleUpon just doesn’t draw the interest that it once did. This evolution could be just what it needs.

    The reality is that StumbleUpon still operates within in an area in which it isn’t really rivaled. There aren’t really any other services of note that do what StumbleUpon does, which is obviously why Camp is still pursuing this kind of content discovery.

    Image via Mix.com

  • CEO Of StumbleUpon’s 5by Talks Business Accounts, Coming Features & More

    Video discovery app 5by, acquired by StumbleUpon in 2013, has seen “tremendous growth” thanks to Google’s Chromecast streaming device, and has businesses on its mind as it continues to grow. It’s also about to get an update with some new features.

    Is video part of your marketing strategy? Are you eager to see 5by offer business accounts? Let us know in the comments.

    We spoke with CEO Greg Isenberg, who told us a bit about 5by’s system for finding and curating great videos from around the Internet as well as some things that are in store for its future.

    “We built a technology that looks at trusted sources we’ve identified (e.g. Bloomberg News, Reddit, etc.) to detect early signs of virality like engagement and social signals,” Isenberg tells WebProNews. “Our speciality is seeking out the hidden gems with just a few hundred views and that’s why people come to 5by – for videos they haven’t yet seen.”

    “From there, they’re aggregated into a dashboard which our editorial team weeds through,” he explains. “Our secret sauce is the human curation element because it takes a real person to determine what should make the cut and our team’s developed a knack for it.”

    5by currently employs just one person to curate content full-time, but also has a handful of part timers doing it, whom he says are “passionate” about certain channels and interests.

    “First they watch the video and if it passes the quality test, they categorize and tag it, putting it in the 5by database (which also lets you search for videos across YouTube, Vimeo and other sources),” he explains. “The hand-selected, human-watched videos get a 5by ‘approval stamp’ which is our guarantee that it’s top quality.”

    StumbleUpon CEO Mark Bartels recently told us, that long-term, as 5by scales, we’ll see it leverage StumbleUpon’s ingestion engine, which includes user-submitted content. In other words, one day, you’ll be able to submit your video content to 5by rather than relying on them to find it on their own. Obviously, they’ll still determine whether or not it’s worth showing to users. For now, you can submit videos by email by simply sending them to [email protected].

    I can personally credit the Chromecast with getting me to watch more 5by content, and I’m definitely not surprised to hear about the service’s growth as a direct result of Google’s $35 device.

    “We were actually one of the first video apps to be Chromecast-compatible and have seen tremendous growth as a result of the integration,” Isenberg tells us. “With 5by, you don’t have to worry about whether you’re going to get good content so a typical use case is that it’ll be a Friday or Saturday night, and someone will beam 5by onto the TV to entertain a room full of people – Covers is a personal favorite channel for that. Ultimately it becomes an endless video playlist and as a result, we see a longer session time (sometimes several hours) because of the larger screen.”

    In an FAQ section on its website, 5by says it plans to roll out business accounts in the future. Asked about what these might entail, Isenberg says, “There are a lot of ways we can approach business accounts but we’ll likely start by looking at who’s already doing well on 5by like Go Pro, Red Bull, Gary Vaynerchuk, among others. We want to be selective about who we work with to preserve quality but these are the partners that understand how to create high quality videos. Brands and media companies have also reached out to us because they see we’re contributing significant video views.”

    “Think of 5by as the lighter fuel,” he adds. “If you’ve got the content (good content that is), 5by can distribute it. There have been multiple times when we’ve made videos go ‘viral’ by giving it a push.”

    So far, 5by has content partnerships in place with VICE, The Tribeca Film Festival, Defy Media, Mashable and Gary Vaynerchuk, but Isenberg tells us they’ll have some major partner announcements in the coming months.

    In addition to its content partnerships, 5by primarily uses YouTube and Vimeo as its video sources, but Isenberg tell us that’s “changing very soon”. Look for additional sources to be added into the mix.

    5by can, of course, only display public videos. However, public video on Facebook is growing like a weed, so don’t be surprised to see some of that creeping in.

    “In general, people are not just posting videos to YouTube anymore,” Isenberg says. ” They’re uploading to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Vine. In the future, 5by will be a layer on top of those platforms to become a one-stop-shop for all things video.”

    Isenberg tells us the newest iteration of 5by should be available by next week. This will include Highlighted Channels on the home screen, a “more intuitive Daily 5” feature (with “the must-see videos to discuss around the water cooler”), an improved Chromecast experience, and an overall quicker load time. It will also include the ability to send videos while you’re watching them.

    One drawback to 5by for parents is that there isn’t any kind of kid mode, and let’s face it – not all of the Internet’s best videos are kid-friendly.

    Isenberg tells us, “We have been approached by quite a few people who make kids content. It’s likely something we’ll explore in the long term.”

    When we interviewed him about a year ago, Isenberg mentioned “more personalization” and “expanding to new platforms” as areas to focus on. These are still areas where 5by has plenty of room to grow.

    Do you use 5by? Are you interested in gaining it as a potential marketing channel? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Images via Twitter, Google Play

  • As StumbleUpon Sends More Traffic, CEO Talks Content Submission

    It was only four short years ago that StumbleUpon was the biggest driver of social media traffic to websites. Look at this chart from StatCounter we shared in January, 2011.

    Was StumbleUpon a big traffic driver for your site back then? Have things changed? Let us know in the comments.

    A lot has changed in the social media landscape since then. For one thing, Pinterest didn’t crack the top ten social networking services until December of that year. Now, it’s number two for social media traffic referrals, while Facebook has completely run away with the top spot. These days, StumbleUpon sits at a respectable number four, based on data from Shareaholic (Pinterest is at a comfortable number 2), but out of the eight social networks Shareaholic tracks, only Facebook and StumbleUpon saw growth in referrals in Q4.

    StumbleUpon referrals are back on the rise after previously heading in the opposite direction, and this is likely due to various efforts by the company, including email and social media strategy, a new blogger program, and a change made to the functionality of the submit button for websites. We discussed all of this here.

    But will websites continue to be able to get their content in front of the StumbleUpon audience and reap the traffic benefits? As you may or may not know, StumbleUpon made its first acquisition in 2013 when it bought video discovery platform 5by. It seems that much of the company’s focus has been on this service, which essentially works like a StumbleUpon for video. Last year, 5by gained Chromecast support, opening the service up to all of those who’ve bought Google’s super-cheap streaming device. 5by, which works great as a discovery service, does not rely on user-submitted content like StumbleUpon, however. Instead, it’s based on algorithms and an internal team of curators.

    We asked StumbleUpon CEO Mark Bartels if the long-term goal is to continue these separate methods for content selection or whether we’ll see both services follow similar models. It would appear that the latter is the plan, but instead of of StumbleUpon adopting the 5by approach, it’s likely that we’ll see 5by adopt the StumbleUpon approach.

    “Long term as 5by scales you’ll see them leverage [the] SU ingestion engine which includes user submitted content,” Bartels tells us.

    In other words, 5by will only get more StumbleUpon-like. StumbleUpon users shouldn’t worry about StumbleUpon becoming more 5by-like when it comes to submitted content. StumbleUpon has no plans to move away from user submissions.

    “Quite the opposite,” Bartels says. “The highest quality content is typically user submitted. The new iOS build now allows uses to submit from Safari. [The] majority of stumbles are now on mobile so giving users [the] ability to submit directly from their mobile browsers or via a badge is [a] great tool. The ingestion engine quickly eliminates duplicates, spam and low quality content. Doing this fast and reliably is key to scaling.”

    The downloadable StumbleUpon toolbar for web browsers used to be a major part of the StumbleUpon experience. These days, it doesn’t seem to be the subject of a whole lot of focus from the company. For example, a while back, StumbleUpon made some changes to the submission experience from the “Submit” button, which sites (like the one you’re on) display on their content. In the past, users would select categories and tags for the content, but now StumbleUpon dictates this categorization on its own. If you submit with the toolbar, however, you still get the old experience.

    Asked if the bar is still being used much, Bartels says, “It still has a lot of power users, but the team resources & growth is on mobile and Web Toolbar. Publishers and brands have made huge leaps in creating mobile optimized stories that load quickly and is user friendly.”

    “Publishers’ natives pages are rendering beautifully within the apps and mobile web. We improve the discovery experience with lightning quick recommendations and pubs get the traffic kick,” he adds, noting that people do underestimate how big and solid the desktop market is.

    “A lot people spend ~8 hours a day in front of a PC,” he says. “Our strongest days on SU are always weekends and Mondays.”

    Publishers looking for increased exposure of their content through StumbleUpon shouldn’t be afraid of submitting their own stuff. Just make sure it’s good content.

    Bartels tells us, “We want to make the guidance clear and friendly to bloggers and businesses promoting quality content on SU. A strong SU community includes giving publishers and bloggers the ability to submit quality stories and not be penalized for self promotion. Ingestion and curation of quality stories is just as important as the discovery and sharing.”

    Just don’t go overboard. Make sure you remember the part about quality. And by all means, share good stuff from other sources too.

    Do you submit your own content to StumbleUpon? Let us know in the comments.

    Images via StatCounter, Shareaholic, Mark Bartels

  • CEO Of StumbleUpon’s 5by Talks New Apps, Plans To ‘Take Over The Living Room’

    Back in September, StumbleUpon made its first acquisition, buying video discovery service 5by. Today, they’ve launched a 5by app for both iOS and Android (beta).

    5by continues to operate independently, and CEO Greg Isenberg tells WebProNews that so far there isn’t any direct integration between the two services. He does admit that they’ve been thinking about it, however.

    “Our #1 priority has been (and is) creating a product that’s help people find those gems of videos that they really care about and deliver it in a beautiful way,” he tells us. “Integration points have not been a huge priority.”

    “StumbleUpon pioneered content discovery and helps people discover and explore the best content on the internet,” he adds. “We’ve been able to leverage that knowledge, acumen and resources to build 5by into what it is today.”

    And what it is today, literally, in addition to its existing web-based service, is a new mobile app. Here’s what it looks like:

    5by

    5by

    With the app, users input their moods and interests, and 5by creates personalized video playlists from an index of millions of videos based on that. Content recommendations are further personalized by people’s tastes as they watch and rate videos.

    “The first layer of personalization comes from our editorial team based on multiple video sources to uncover the best content,” Isenberg explains. “Then the next layer of personalization revolves around how the user interacts with the app. The more you interact with the app, such as skipping videos or putting a smiley face on a video you thought was funny, the more we learn about you and the more we can deliver videos we think you’re going to like. We like to think about 5by as your personal video concierge that’s constantly learning about your likes and dislikes and only gets better over time.”

    Such an app seems ideal for TV-connected devices. Asked about plans for such apps, Isenberg tells us, “Our focus right now is delivering the best experience possible on iOS/Android but we’re definitely thinking and investing in ways to build for the 10 ft experience. There is a real opportunity to create a truly lean back experience around YouTube/Vimeo videos and we think that can deliver a remarkable experience eventually on those platforms.”

    As far as what’s next, he says, “More personalization and continue to find new ways to bring our users the best possible videos out there. Continue to expand to new platforms and really take over the living room. TV apps, gaming consoles, you name it.”

    This mirrors some of the things StumbleUpon CEO Mark Bartels told us in an interview a few months ago.

    Images via Google Play

  • StumbleUpon Makes First Acquisition: Video Discovery Service 5By

    StumbleUpon has acquired video discovery company 5by. This is the first acquisition StumbleUpon has made in its decade of existence.

    StumbleUpon’s Mike Mayzel tells us that 5by’s team of six people will move from Montreal to work in StumbleUpon’s San Francisco office.

    “We’re really excited about bringing their talent, expertise and technology to the company,” he says.

    To use 5by, users sign in with their Facebook accounts, then are greeted with a screen presenting them with video types:

    5by

    From there, you can go into sub-categories, and eventually start going through random videos, much like you would with StumbleUpon. It’s easy to see where this acquisition would be a perfect fit. Still, Mayzel tells us that 5by will continue to build and operate a standalone product (mobile and desktop).

    “In the future we will explore integration possibilities such as how 5by can leverage our recommendation technology and index and how we can enhance our own video recommendation experience with 5by,” he says.

    When asked if StumbleUpon would use 5by to deliver videos to users regardless of whether the videos were submitted by users, he said, ” A majority of our videos in SU are user curated while a very small percentage are ingested.”

    Last week, the company revealed some revenue numbers publicly for the first time, along with the news that it is now profitable. We had a conversation with CEO Mark Bartels about the company’s strategy and direction.

    This includes increased efforts in video discovery, and plans for a bigger presence across devices like connected televisions and gaming consoles.

    “We continue to invest in moving beyond desktop – and our mobile-first approach is focused on smartphones and tablets, but also interactive TVs and gaming consoles,” Bartels told WebProNews. “As we invest in these platforms our revenue continues to increase and this year our mobile share of revenue is 20%, and we expect that number to climb.”

    StumbleUpon expects to grow revenue to $35 – 40 million this year.

    As mentioned, 5by is the company’s first acquisition, but from the sound of it, we can probably expect more.

    “We are in a position now as a profitable company to make more acquisitions in the future but nothing specific to announce at this time,” Mayzel says.

    StumbleUpon would not share any specific plans regarding its TV/gaming console presence, but said “it’s on the roadmap.”