Google Rains On StumbleUpon Parade: Launches Direct Competitor

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1. Quinn
   

   April 18th, 2007 at 4:09 pm

   But I don’t search for things I like, necessarily. I know the sites I like, and I type them into my address bar and read them in my RSS reader. Half of my Google searches are error messages pasted verbatim, lots of them are people’s names, and the rest are street addresses. How is Google going to figure out what I like based on that?

2. Steve
   

   April 18th, 2007 at 4:09 pm

   Google. A playground bully? No, they wouldn’t do something like that

3. Sean
   

   April 18th, 2007 at 4:10 pm

   Haha!

4. Hornswaggled
   

   April 18th, 2007 at 4:14 pm

   I wonder if they will adopt the stumbleupon advertising model. This would be pretty cool for advertisers looking for branding.

   One of the things thats good about stumbleupon is the community. If Google doesnt try and recreate the community then this will not be as successful. Its nice to check out the people who have submitted the sites and how many people like certain sites.

   If Google does build a community around this the news here may be even bigger…

5. Colin
   

   April 18th, 2007 at 4:15 pm

   stumbleupon, google, leaptag, streakr who’s next?

6. drew olanoff
   

   April 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm

   i love this web 2.0 game!

7. Andrew
   

   April 18th, 2007 at 4:19 pm

   Anyone remember how the original Yahoo had a dice icon on their homepage you could click to get a random website? I think it was purely random but still, a precursor to these features today.

8. Mike Scandlon
   

   April 18th, 2007 at 4:23 pm

   I wonder whether eBay is going to lower its offer in light of Google’s new queryless search service? This seems much more like a smack down of eBay’s attempt to get into the search game, than so than Google “lashing out” because they didn’t win the auction for StumbleUpon.

   If Google has built a StumpleUpon-like service, deeply connected to its existing search product, why would they need to buy the company?

9. WebVideoDoctor.com
   

   April 18th, 2007 at 4:24 pm

   Ouch! Pwnd! etc.! I think it is a good idea to sell as soon as you get an offer… I still think that Facebook guy is going to regret turning down that one deal some time ago..

10. Bob
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:27 pm

    a webtech digg again! way to go mike :>

    I will roll the dice tonight….

11. Casey Kazan
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:28 pm

    Yes, but Google is missing the intense, social community aspect that drives much of StumbleUpon’s charm and recent success.

12. Zaid
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:37 pm

    Last thing I want after a day of googling some obscure topic for a paper is to be suggested yet another obscure site that is of no personal interest to me. I’m sure google will take into account and try to avoid this but its the obvious hypothetical flaw.

13. Aziz
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:39 pm

    Google is trying to jump into every business, anything and everything their competitors are doing .. lets c how long this party lasts!

14. Veyes
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:44 pm

    The perfect excuse to begin using Stumbleupon.

15. hE oNLY mADE oNe
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:44 pm

    this ain’t a “direct” competitor ass.

16. Zaid
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    The real fun must be in the behind the door story. I doubt if google wanted this *so* much they would let it go for financial reasons.

    Seems more like they are pissed at the nature of the acquisition. May be google didn’t get a chance to make an offer? Or…

17. Alejandro
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:53 pm

    Aziz wrote: …Google is trying to jump into every business…

    Well, when you have $10 BILLION in cash you can do wonders. Look at the numbers. Instituional money market rate will pay Google 5% on their $10B. That is $500 million in interest alone for the year or $41 million per month.
    Yes, I’d say this is a great strategy using the banks money to grow your business…. the other choice is to give the money back to the shareholders, ugh!
    Don’t hate the playa hate the game!

18. Charbarred
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:53 pm

    The nice thing about SU is the whole community aspect and the ability to interact with other users. Displaying a random page is useless, admitting that Google collects information about your searches and then analyzes them…well, that just opens up a whole new can of worms.

19. Shad Q.
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 4:53 pm

    As far as I am concerned, this is pretty evil. I feel that this announcement has greater ramifications beyond merely lashing out at Ebay. It means that Google is proactively squashing any chance that the little guy who is extremely innovative once had. Google is no longer a creative, positive force on the Internet, but a massive corporation who makes up in muscle what they lack in creativity. Start-ups beware!

20. Mike Koss
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 5:01 pm

    People channel-surf TV, and they want to channel surf the web. It’s not necessarily true that Google will do this as well as SU has. I don’t think this devalues SU’s offer at all. Note that in order to hurt SU:

    a) The dice icon must be prominent (on by default) in the Google Toollbar. Will it be?
    b) It has to deliver the same satisfying experience that SU does (or better).

    I doubt either will be true. Just because a small group at Google ships a “20%” project, it does NOT mean that the earth will shake. There are a lot of Google projects that fizzle.

21. Jacob Levy
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 5:01 pm

    Im not seeing this icon on my google toolbar… How would I get it? Am I missing something obvious?

22. steven
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 5:03 pm

    I agree, google is getting to the point where it is screwing up startups by trying to throw it’s weight & hype around. Not that anyone should be that worried though, because the fact is they haven’t been very innovative in anything other than search, and even that quite frankly is not very innovative other than the way they’ve integrated advertising. Honestly, I don’t want to use any other google products other than search. Why should I go to 1 company for everything? Their only motivation is to collect more information to further target/serve more ads.

23. bullies will buy your startup toys
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 5:04 pm

    MSN, YaHOO, Google is your best playground bully. They buy your toys and you cannot keep it. Deal with it!!!

    Is Business life dudes!!!

    You got nice toys… Companies will buy it. you can’t have it no more. you can keep million dollars.

24. Mike Koss
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 5:26 pm

    Normally, new buttons you can add to your Toolbar will show up in Google’s Button Gallery:

    http://toolbar.google.com/buttons/gallery

    In this case, the Blog post by the Google Toolbar developers contains the only link to add this new button:

    http://toolbar.google.com/butt.....or_you.xml

    It DOES like an over-zealous developer wanting to trump the Ebay/SU announcement by pushing this out quickly.

25. Will
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 5:33 pm

    It’s starting to look like Google wants to become the online version of Microsoft. IE: Make everything your competition has, and mass produce it.

26. patricia
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 5:34 pm

    I know it’s what it is but I’ve always felt that site wasn’t at all sexy or cool. Concept, yes. Company? No. I see the value - how interesting to see eBay of all companies to make a move! but somehow, it’s always felt a little Cracker Barrell to me.

    I like when Google rains on the parade, personally. If anybody’s going to do it I’m glad to see them versus FIM, etc. Keeps it in the family

27. Ted
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

    I cannot find this on my toolbar either… I checked the preferences still… no dice, (no pun intended). Any clues?

28. Raymond
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 6:02 pm

    Watch I bet Google makes a run at AuctionAds just to block eBay so they can get a fire under Google Base with all those publishers.

29. Colin Dowling
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 6:12 pm

    It was only a matter of time until the don’t be evil mantra fell victim to good old fashioned capitalism.

30. Direct Textbooks
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 6:39 pm

    There’s zero evil about capitalism, it’s far and away the most moral system we have. It’s the only free way to live.

    And there’s zero evil about these stupid dice. It’s just sort of childish. The problem isn’t ‘evil’, it’s that Google is so sanctimonious and snooty that it’s enjoyable to root against them. To me they’re just unlikeable.

    I switched my toolbar search to Yahoo and I wouldn’t know the difference if my life depended on it. I’m sure the ads are more contextually correct on Google, but I’m not searching for ads, thanks.

31. Wes
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 6:49 pm

    Maybe in the end Google wants to have everything. But it is the quality of the products that will bring people’s attention.

32. A
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

    Big deal. StumbleUpon will still win. Google has lost on so many of these little projects I’ve lost count. Google Checkout = Paypal Killer? No. Google Video = Youtube/iTunes killer? No. Google Base = Craigslist killer? No. Remember Froogle? That was another big loser. There’s too much proof that Google copying someone leads to a big waste of Google money.

33. Jeremy Toeman
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:02 pm

    What is with all this whining about “squashing startups”? Google is out to build their empire, pure and simple. If some little company comes along and wants to own some tiny little space, do they have the right to demand Google stop their own growth? Don’t get me wrong, I think the “don’t be evil” mantra is a bunch of hogwash as well, but not because of things like this.

    There are plenty of innovators out there building interesting technology that is differentiated enough to either be acquirable or a self-sustaining asset. Furthermore, Google doesn’t always win in some categories (ahem, video). Some commentors above laud the SU community - maybe Google’s efforts will fall flat in that area. Craigslist still beats the pants off Google Base. Picasa isn’t dominant, etc…

    Personally, I’d be surprised for them to put in resources to build something like this purely out of spite…

34. SorenG
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:09 pm

    This just seems completely childish of Google. I would think they would have other more important things to put their attention to than this kind of behavior.

35. Don Wilson
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:10 pm

    I’m starting to not like Google, not necessarily for this.

36. Jeremy Toeman
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:17 pm

    (btw the ‘whining’ remark was directed at the commentors, not Mike)

37. Sahar Sarid
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:20 pm

    See this too..
    http://searchengineland.com/070418-132824.php

    Who are they copying? Hakia.com

    Their image is getting worse by the hour.

38. Rons Dixon
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:21 pm

    It is absolutely ludicrous to think that in the eyes of Google, stumbleupon is worth 40Mill. Google already has a tool bar and are just adding new features and functionalities. As it relates to them talking about it now, it is the perfect time to do it. People remember Google is running a business just like everyone else. Let me ask Mike a question, would Techcrunch buy publishing2 if they had better features and functionalites. No Mike would just enhance Techcrunch with similar features period. That’s just how the nature of the business is.

39. Robert Dewey
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:26 pm

    This makes Google look like they are grasping at straws; why not just outbid eBay? On top of that, they are throwing Froogle into the dead pool and/or renaming it. Google Pay doesn’t seem all that hot either… nor does a few of the other products they’ve been launching.

    I hate to say it, but it looks like Google is trying too hard to diversify into things they aren’t equipped to handle (or things that they suck at).

    Are we beginning to see the stagger of an 800 pound gorilla?

40. What's with those r endings?
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:26 pm

    pickr, flickr, stickr, f*ckr, nosepickr…,r..r…r…

    why r’s at the ending meanings?

41. RaJ
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    I agree with OM. As well no doubt Google has capacity to create an additional functionality like this in their existing toolbar. I thought that it was a good decision from google. But I agree with #22 Steven.

    http://www.suggestusability.com

42. Adam
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    it’s pretty lame. Any stumblers here? I’m a heavy stumbler - have it installed on all 19 of the office pcs and encourage the interns to stumble frequently - the dice doesn’t even come close to what stumble can do and does from a brand marketing point of view (what we use it for).

    it’s cute though - kind of like comparing a chipmunk to a stegosaurus if you asked me

43. Revilo
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:41 pm

    Google really is becoming the new MSFT. I remember the fear in the late nineties when MSFT would kill your start-up with a press release touting the same functionality.. and now look at the boring morass of crap that comes from them.. Google is just following this trend but faster, more brazenly, and perhaps with much more disastrous results. Remember.. Google does not have a hold on all the PC’s that ship, the X-box, or frankly anything else to fall back upon.. just look at the immediately backlash occurring with their acquisition of DoubleClick.. This one-trick pony should focus on their core business not ruining others….

44. Fangbear
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:48 pm

    Web 2pwnt0

    Oh the insanity!

45. Anshul
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 7:49 pm

    Google is really becoming the new MS. There isnt any direction anymore. How many new search features have they introduced in the last 2-3 yrs. Hardly any. I love Google for search and GMail. Comeon Google stop acting like a pissed of kid.

46. Chad
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 8:26 pm

    Seems like a no-brainer that Google would add this sort of feature. As they acquire more information about your searching (and now ad-clicking) habits, they will continue to leverage it as both a barrier to competition and as a touted “feature” for the consumer.

    Chad
    http://www.wtfShouldIDo.com

47. kay
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 9:08 pm

    do no evil?

48. JPL
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 9:28 pm

    Sounds like google is being evil

49. Rekzai
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 10:05 pm

    Well this doesn’t really do much for webmasters looking for traffic

50. Stefan Hess
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 10:07 pm

    I think we will see that Google can copy every model very fast. If they would start an free dating-service they would be market leader in weeks. Google is a fast and big train. At this point you can not stop it very easy.

51. Zerosleep
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 11:10 pm

    Wow, great new, but Google Copies everything :@ anyways, it will be fun watching the battle between Stumbleupon and Google
    I think StumbleUpon Wins

52. Deepak
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 11:20 pm

    It’s just a search history based recommendation engine. Probably something they cooked up pretty quickly, so while the timing is probably deliberate, they must have had it in the oven for a bit. A year ago this would have been seen as cute. I am a stumbler, although I never use the social features. I plan to use both, since the recommendation engine was pretty good.

    I wonder if Amazon would have been the ideal suitor for StumbleUpon? EBay just doesn’t make sense

53. Markus
    

    April 18th, 2007 at 11:21 pm

    Gee, I wonder if adsense sites will be more likely to come up when “rolling the dice” than non-adsense sites.

    Naw, Google would never do something like that. That would be …. umm what’s that word again? Oh yeah “evil”.

    Google’s timing here shows how greedy and immature they’ve become.

54. Adam Lasnik
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 12:48 am

    Hey there,

    I work for Google, though not in the area that’s related to this issue.

    I wanted to note that Google’s been deepening its personalization features over the last many, many months. In fact, I believe it was several months ago that our Google Personalized Homepage folks added a nifty personalization feature: when you add new tabs, Google offers to fill part of the page with content it figures you’d like… so naming a new tab “music” results in fun music widgets, music news, etc., that are tuned to your search history and such.

    We’ve been tuning actual search results based upon personalization for quite a long time as well, with prominent Googlers (including some of my teammates) speaking about this issue at conferences, for publications, etc.

    In short, though I don’t personally know the team behind this new feature, I’d be willing to bet that it had absolutely nothing to do with Stumbleupon or even other sites in general; it was just a natural extension of personalized services. And — come on — even in a fast moving company like Google, do you really think we’re typically whipping stuff up, testing it, and posting it publicly in a day or even a week? We have a sense of humor, but in my experience, it’s never at the expense of others; we’re more apt to tweak ourselves (like in our April Fools jokes).

    Lastly, I should note that I’m a big Stumbleupon fan
    http://thatadamguy.stumbleupon.com/
    …so no matter what happens with ‘em (acquisition-wise, etc.), I wish the creative folks behind that service all the best!

55. LifesterBlog
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 12:51 am

    So Google is after everything lately……let’s see how this web 2.0 game will continue in the near future…

56. victor
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 1:01 am

    I think what google needs is a site like http://www.mediarati.com if they are to make any impact in this area.

57. a
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 1:06 am

    i was going to write a strategically worded google pr comment but adam lasnick did it first. probably just to steal my thunder.

58. Michael Arrington
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 2:02 am

    Hey Adam, Thanks very much for the comment. I think the timing was just incredibly coincidental on this, coming right after the SU news broke.

    It’s obviously not a direct rip off, but it has very similar end results to SU

59. Robert
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 4:29 am

    add the first url as a toolbar bookmark

    http://www.google.com/searchhi.....fb&hl={locale}

    or for your rss reader

    http://www.google.com/searchhi.....b&tc=1

60. Kris
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 4:45 am

    goog 411 is a winner in my book.

61. Huw Leslie
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 4:53 am

    Frankly, the results of the Google competitor are mediochre at best when compared to StumbleUpon. It seems to show me sites related to my previous searches, rather than predict what I am likely to be interested in. Just because I searched for a bit of information on something does not mean that I want to see any more information on that subject.

62. Michael Fomkin
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 5:48 am

    I really enjoy stumble and do not think google will do well

63. Aibek
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 6:01 am

    only thing that is similar here, is the way user is taken to a new website. That’s the only thing. These two concepts are very different from each other, I guess any regular SU user would agree with me.

64. John
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 6:02 am

    Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems like Google hasn’t come out with anything new/ground breaking in quite awhile. For all the engineers they hire, where’s the innovation? Do they begin talks with startups to just sniff around for ideas?

65. djmundy
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 6:03 am

    I think this is a step in the right direction.

    A long time ago I used Furl to store my bookmarks online. It knew what pages I liked, compared my bookmarks with those that other people (with similar interests to my own) also liked, and then recommended stuff to me. I was always finding something interesting.

    I scrapped Furl because it became too slow, and I liked the ease of use and social networking of del.icio.us. Then I scrapped that in favour of Google Bookmarks, because it offered the full text searching that I missed from Furl. Now I miss the social aspect of del.icio.us! But most of all I miss the “recommended bookmarks” feature that Furl offered.

    Now that Google are using web history to give me recommendations - hopefully this concept can be extended to Google Bookmarks.

    Maybe something similar could be utilised in Google Reader for RSS feeds - items could appear closer to the top if people with similar interests to mine also found them intersting.

66. Greg
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 6:16 am

    Google doesn’t do people well, e.g. Orkut, Yahoo Answers beating Google. StumpleUpon is all about human recommendations. If I were them, I wouldn’t be too worried.

67. Jason Alba
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 7:24 am

    Isn’t “lashing out” evil?

    Jason Alba
    CEO - JibberJobber.com

68. internet website design
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 7:44 am

    Why does google have to dig themselfs in a deeper hole? Cant they just be #2 or 3 and be happy with their x amount of money?

69. engtech
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 7:45 am

    I see this a lot less of lashing out at StumbleUpon and a lot more as Google creating an incentive for their “personalized search recommendations” feature they’ve been pimping for a while.

    This may have been rolled out the door faster to catch the SU buzz, but they didn’t develop this in a week as a potential response.

    Besides, Google did StumbleUpon *before* StumbleUpon ever did: http://googlesystem.blogspot.c.....ttons.html

    * Disclosure: I’m a StumbleUpon sponsor http://ninetimessix.stumbleupon.com

70. lwfleetham
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 8:36 am

    At the heart of it Google needs to find a way to develop search relevancy on a per-user basis. Personalized search could be one option, but as Quinn pointed out it has its draw backs. Google -like every other media management company- is going to need to figure out a way to deliver results that are not only pertinent to the user’s search term, but also the user himself. They probably, and rightfully, see the technology behind Stumbleupon as a first step in that Web 2.0 direction.

71. Dominic
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 8:48 am

    They’re wanting to OWN the web. They are hoping every one else just folds their tents so that their sites will join the almost 80% of the useless pages in their search databases. C’mon folks, take your ball and go home. Give up the ghost. Google and Walmart, not a lot of difference IMHO.

72. Ron Diggity
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 9:53 am

    Google is losing it. They want to have their cake and eat it too. We need more companies to prove Google wrong because they’re on the path to becoming Microsoft part 2!

73. prakster
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 11:40 am

    What the…!

    Wonder how it played out between Sergey, Bren, Eric and Omid the marketing genius at Google).

    Mike, isn’t Omid an investor in StumbleUpon?

74. Amanda
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 11:59 am

    How gay.

75. Frank Cefalu
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 12:39 pm

    Are you guys stupid? I am Feeling Lucky is WHAT StumbleUpon is based on. Talking about a biast post..

76. Vinod @ VinodLive
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 12:53 pm

    This is material for a real Orkut Bar.

77. Billy
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

    This is going to be interesting. I love stumble upon. Its cool. Will google’s version be more efficient? ummmmm - Musicshedd.com - free tutorials

78. Mydow
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 2:31 pm

    Dont be evil!!!

79. DBethke
    

    April 19th, 2007 at 10:59 pm

    I agree with Frank Cefalu. “I’m Feeling Lucky” has been an option on the Google Toolbar for as long as I can remember…

80. Bill
    

    April 20th, 2007 at 8:27 pm

    Is taking over the internet evil? They’ve never denied being capitalists. Can a public company have a conscience or will it always be about growth?

81. 11amDesign
    

    April 22nd, 2007 at 6:08 am

    Whose going to be the next social bookmarking takeover?

82. sweetlamb
    

    May 1st, 2007 at 3:45 am

    Well if Ebay bought SU the price of being a sponsor will soon go up.

83. Matt Keegan
    

    May 2nd, 2007 at 4:52 pm

    We really do not need Google buying up every tech company that is available and for that I am glad that eBay won out. I like SU and the functionality that it presents. Plus, the community aspect of the site makes SU better than the Google dice IMO.

84. John Jackson
    

    May 3rd, 2007 at 7:52 pm

    Google needs something new.

85. Hdr Photography
    

    May 15th, 2007 at 2:32 am

    Google has the money to compete with whomever they wish online. Does this suprise anyone really?

86. baki
    

    May 15th, 2007 at 2:57 am

    Big G always find a way to do what they want.

    But I agree with #84 John Jackson - Google needs to inovate something new.
    I doubt that they will nockdown SU in e near future

87. Free Dating Site
    

    May 15th, 2007 at 5:02 am

    This is all what was needed google dominating again.

88. Get paid to blog
    

    May 15th, 2007 at 9:44 am

    eBay to pay $90m for StumbleUpon? wow thats a lot of money

89. uttoransen
    

    May 15th, 2007 at 10:01 am

    that’s great news, now we can get some traffic from google also!
    but then it won’t be easy with google, as it is with stumble upon!

90. Directory of Directories
    

    May 15th, 2007 at 9:06 pm

    I don’t like Google for this particular reason
    they try to bring the entire Internet World into their hands
    too bad…

91. John
    

    May 16th, 2007 at 1:58 am

    “they haven’t been very innovative in anything other than search”

    ARE YOU SMOKING CRACK?

    GOOGLE EARTH?????