What is it with all the toolbar copycat craziness lately. First, there was Digg going after StumbleUpon with the Diggbar. Then StumbleUpon, which already had a toolbar, introduced a new toolbar/URL shortening service called Su.pr.
Now, micro-blogging service Tumblr is getting in on the act with its own toolbar which it is calling TumbleUpon. Could they try to be more blatant in ripping off StumbleUpon? The toolbar has a random Stumble-like shuffle button which randomly takes you through different Tumblogs in a similar way that StumbleUpon’s toolbars do. On the right there is a heart button if you want to “like” a page, a reblog button and a button that takes you to your own Tumblr dashboard.
StumbleUpon’s Su.pr toolbar, in comparison, also has a random shuffle button for discovering pages Websites other people have Stumbled, and a “like” button. But Su.pr is a URL shortener with powerful analytics on the backend, while TumbleUpon is not. It is just a discovery tool which surfaces other Tumblogs of people who have overlapping “likes.”
So is this a joke? Yes, and no. Tumblr founder David Karp tells us:
It was really an experiment to see how a tool like StumbleUpon would work for Tumblr content. Based on the feedback, it seems to be doing a pretty good job. We really like that it’s the first Tumblr discovery tool that shows off all of the pretty user created themes while exploring content. . . .
We might wind up changing the name when we start promoting it in the Dashboard
In a blog post today, Karp also shares some growth stats. He claims that in July, 2009, Tumblr had 50 million visitors, 255 million impressions, 650,000 new posts per day, and 5,000 new users per day.
Tumblr is definitely growing, but comScore estimates a much smaller number of users: only 3.9 million uniques worldwide in June, 2009 and 68 million pageviews. That is a 3X increase in unique visitors over a year ago and a 12X increase in pageviews, but a far cry from the numbers Karp is putting out.
I asked Karp what could explain this disparity. He pointed out that 15 percent of Tumblr’s blogs are on custom domains, and that the 50 million number is for visitors per Google Analytics. The same person can be a visitor more than once. Google counts 20 million unique visitors, and Quantcast counts 13 million worldwide. The site is verified by Quantcast, so I’d go with that number. Any way you count it, though, the service is showing strong growth.
But really, TumbleUpon?
What an original name.
Brand Confusion. If this isn’t worthy of a lawsuit i don’t know what it. If this ever gets traction, i suspect they would change the name.
What the hell is microblogging? Is that like message boards for morons?
I used to think that iGoogle is an Apple product.
Lame and Lamr
tumbld.
Death to these stupid bars. That is all.
Tumblr still is top dog freaking awesome. And TumblUpon is a rather natural progression from their “likes” feature…although the name is lame. I was wondering when that would surface to be at all usable other than the “Tumblr Crushes” feature.
I’ve invested plenty of time in trying out Posterous and Tumblr. Where Posterous wins with ease of publishing content out to all my external sites – Tumblr is just a slicker, better designed, more fun “blogging-lite” site with a much more lively community.
http://cuppy.tumblr.com
Meh
Help us name this feature!
http://www.davi...g.com/156599150
<3
Jumblr
Awesome.
Plagrizr
I, like a lot of people, tried tumblr (and liked it a lot) – but I think I will remain with my own wordpress installation, even if it means less readers
Nice picture!
These guys mean BIZINESS. What a cut-throat move. And I love it..Heyyy.
Dude. Chill out. It seems all in good fun.
tumblr fan-boy is speaking
More toolbars…
It’s a good idea that makes sense if you use tumblr, but it’s an unfortunate name over which StumbleUpon could probably use to sue them
Tubleblog, not Microblog…
useless service
By “visitors” he must have meant visits.
Isn’t this called irony? Tumblr’s full of that.
Stumbleupon vs Tumbelupon – There’s a potentional trademark issue. The tests are likelhood of confusion (e.g., does it look, sound or mean the same for similar product/service) or dilution (for “famous” marks).
Stumbleupon has at least three registered trademarks for Stumbleupon:
http://tinyurl.com/ntps7t
I’ve been impressed by tumblr and its growth and wish them the best, but would recommend they hire a solid trademark lawyer just in case.
It is called “tumblupon” without the e. Check the link again.
I like Tumblr’s web tech — great example of clean web 2.0, but that sure sounds like a lawsuit to me. But hey, that sort of thing has a marketing value because sites like this eat that stuff up.
if stumbleupon would simply introduce a bookmarlet tool and intelligent post formatting like tumblr does it wouldn’t feel so 2004.
How much of that traffic is for their adult content too…
You should probably read the entire article before jumping go conclusions. Like Karp said, they’re testing it out, seeing how a tool like Stumbleupon would work for Tumblr. Plus he left a comments with a link inviting people to come up with names for it. Calm down, sheesh.
Does anyone actually like toolbars? I’ve tried a few and have hated them all.
I most recently uninstalled glue from Firefox after having it do nothing but annoy me.
Never again.
I want to punch toolbars in the face.
I think they serve a purpose, I agree with your view on glue though as I also found that to be intrusive.
Great headline for this post you should have finished with ‘Mmmm Mmmmm…’
I would sue the daylights out of them for using that name if I were stumbleupon.
i like