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Sad news for fans of StumbleUpon. The site that engrossed many fans and led to hours of time wasted spent discovering interesting, quirky and unusual sites on the Internet is closing on June 30.
Why StumbleUpon Will Be Missed by Many
StumbleUpon was a site that let you “stumble” through sites on topics of interest to you. Sign up for an account, let StumbleUpon know what you want to discover, then hit the Stumble button.
Fun, funky and fascinating websites would appear, letting you discover sites you may never have found on your own. You never knew what you’d discover when you hit the Stumble button.
That thrill of discovery made the Stumble button quite addictive. If you didn’t press it just one more time you may have missed out on the one website on the Internet that could truly change your life!
Or you may have seen cute kitten photos or stupid human tricks videos or amazing photos of nature. As interesting as those might be a few times, they may grow old after a while.
With a Stumble button on your internet browser toolbar, you could share your favorite websites on StumbleUpon so others could stumble upon them. Sharing buttons for StumbleUpon on websites (such as The Wonder of Tech) made sharing your favorite sites easier.
StumbleUpon was a very successful site, with over 40 million users stumbling over 60 billion times. But according to Shareaholic, a social media sharing service, sharing to StumbleUpon from websites declined by 43% between 2016 and 2017.
StumbleUpon Shutting Down
A few weeks ago the founder of StumbleUpon, Garrett Camp, announced that he would be shuttering StumbleUpon to focus on his new website Mix. Instead of revamping StumbleUpon, he decided to start a new website called Mix to help people discover interesting websites. See => Medium, SU is moving to Mix.
StumbleUpon will still be around until the end of this month. So if you’re a big fan, head to the site and keep clicking that Stumble button while you still can.
Learn more at => You’ll Fall for StumbleUpon!
Hello Mix
Mix is similar to StumbleUpon in that you can find little-known websites on topics of interest to you. The format of the site is quite different though.
Unlike StumbleUpon, the thrill of discovery when pressing the Stumble button is gone. Simply scrolling down the page on Mix doesn’t seem quite as addictive as stumbling.
Instead of being presented with a screen filled with a stumbled website, users of Mix see a screen filled with panels. Each panel has an image and link to an article, along with the topic it covers.
The site looks similar to Pinterest in the images that look like pins on the home page. Unlike Pinterest, each image on Mix links to an article.
The photos may draw you into Mix, as you scroll down and click on the articles that interest you. You can find an endless supply of articles to discover on topics that you enjoy.
Getting Started with Mix
Users of StumbleUpon can import their interests, stumbles and account to Mix by going to Mix.com and signing in with their StumbleUpon account user name and password. Or you can start fresh with Mix and create a new account.
After you either transfer your account or sign up for a new one, you can choose which topics you want to discover on Mix.
With the Mix Chrome Extension and Mix Firefox Add-On you can add your favorite sites to Mix. Mix buttons are not available yet for websites so get the Chrome extension or Firefox add-on if you want to add sites to Mix easily.
Mix is also available as an app for iPhone/iPad and Android.
At the top of the Mix website screen are links to the different sections: For You, Explore and Profile.
The For You section shows articles on topics you have registered an interest in.
Mix also lets you create Collections of your favorite articles. Press the Plus button on an article in the For You section to create, or add to, a Collection. You’ll see others’ Collections appear as circles.
The Explore section shows you popular articles and Collections.
Visit the Profile section to adjust the settings to your account. There is also a Help section you can access by clicking on the Blue icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.
Your Thoughts
Were you a fan of StumbleUpon? Will you miss hitting the Stumble button? Will you be giving Mix a try?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
Hi Carolyn,
Thanks for sharing these amazing information with us. And Surely I will be missing StumbleUpon for sure.
And have a good day ahead.
Hi Robin, Yes, the closing of StumbleUpon is quite a loss for all of us. I will miss it as a fun way to discover hidden treasures on the Internet. I’ll also miss it as a blogger since StumbleUpon sent quite a bit of traffic to The Wonder of Tech.
I hope Mix is very successful at filling the void StumbleUpon is leaving behind.
Hii
Carolyn,
Now, the time is coming to say good-bye to “Stumbleupon” and hello to “Mix”. I will always miss SU. But, I am excited to try “Mix” and thanks for sharing this information with us.
Have a great day
Praveen Verma
Hi Praveen, I am glad you’re going to give Mix a try. I hope you enjoy Mix and it becomes as successful as StumbleUpon once was. If you find compelling content, it could be a great site for you.
Thanks for this info. I will surely miss the Stumbleupon because I used to drive some traffic to my blog through that. Now I hope “Mix” would allow me to do many great things have to try it. Thanks again
Hi Akash, You’re not alone. I will miss StumbleUpon both as a user and as a blogger. StumbleUpon used to be the second source of traffic to my site after Google. But now Pinterest has taken over as a strong source of traffic.
I too hope that Mix turns out to be as great as StumbleUpon.
why must he close my beloved stumbleupon ,sir please am in love with stumble dont shut it down. instead sale it so that another person will start managing it while you move to your new site
Hi Jack, Yes, StumbleUpon will be missed by many. Mix may or may not be a hit, but the death of StumbleUpon will certainly leave a void in the Internet.
Hello Carolyn,
Thanks for your wonderful article. Missing a favourite website in the internet world is not a new thing. But shutting a website which we loves the most is the hardest moment. I have the same experience when I heard Orkut shutting.
I believe in philosophy. Everything in the world have a start and end date.
Will try Mix.
Hi Gunaseelan, Good point, nothing lasts forever, especially in the world of tech. But StumbleUpon will be sorely missed. I certainly hope that Mix will be as wonderful as StumbleUpon was!
I was a fan of the original StumbleUpon. But they missed a huge opportunity by hiding their very best pages. I wonder how many realize they had a page on each topic that showed the very best all-time content plus the experts on that topic.
They could have offered highly targeted ads on those pages and featured them. Few would mind ads that were that relevant. I believe they could have successfully competed with AdWords as no one else has.
When they deleted everything users wrote suddenly and without warning, without letting us download and save it first or move it, they lost a lot of loyal users. But they wanted those pennies for bouncing traffic. It is no wonder they are just closing it down.
I really don’t get Mix at all. Maybe someone else can explain it to me.
I agree with you, Gail. StumbleUpon of recent years was less compelling than the original. A few points from my experience to add to yours. The original allowed comments about the stumbled web pages, which was particularly nice when you stumbled to a picture that was directly linked, rather than being part of an article or collection. Inevitably you would have a question about the picture and someone else could tell you more about what you were seeing.
As SU worked to monetize, the supported stumbles became more obtrusive. I’m okay with them paying the bills, but no matter how many times I clicked the “not for me” thumbs down icon, I would get an endless stream of Medpage Today pages on every ailment under the sun.
For me, SU was already dead. Maybe I’ll try Mix, maybe not.
StumbleUpon is no more? Say it isn’t so! Stumbleupon was my “go to” to open up the internet to wonderful sites that I probably would have never found on my own. I’ll give MIX a try but at first glance it looks like it won’t stand up to the uniqueness and utility of Stumbleupon.