Just A Blip On The Facebook Radar
I just finished reading Marty Weintraub’s social marketing piece, “Is Facebook Bleeding Out StumbleUpon?” and was left with a sinking feeling. Could it be that my favorite social media tool, StumbleUpon, will eventually be choked out by Facebook? Perish the thought!
Ditching StumbleUpon For Facebook?
As horrible as the thought is, facts seem to be supporting what Marty has discovered: his online marketing contacts appear to be using Facebook much more than they are using Stumbleupon.
Specifically, Marty notes:
All of us only have SO much time each day and tend to focus on sending and receiving communications from email + one or 2 communities. I used to get 6-10 emails a day in SU. Now those same good friends communicate with me through Facebook.
50 Million Users v. 4 Million Users
I haven’t noticed the change myself, mostly because I have a minimal presence on Facebook. I still get plenty of stumble requests from my contacts and my list of friends continues to expand.
Yes, I know that Facebook is “where its at” but I prefer a more intimate setting then the 50 million user Facebook. With just 4 million registered users, StumbleUpon (SU) is a much more comfortable fit for the way that I work.
Although the 200 member limit on SU is kind of a pain, at least SU isn’t silly like MySpace where everyone wants to be your girlfriend. On the other hand, I’ve been bothered by Facebook’s web-monitoring feature which I find to be highly intrusive. I understand that this has been scaled back recently, but it still bugs me that they even pushed such nonsense.
A Call To Arms
Despite its faults, I’ll likely be stepping up my Facebook presence after the new year, but I have no intention of ditching SU. I also like LinkedIn as I have made some fabulous contacts through this business social networking community.
Like people concerned about Google’s huge growth (and resultant PageRank craziness) I don’t want any one company dominating social media nor do I want one search engine to rule. Therefore, consider this as my personal appeal to all stumblers out there to keep on stumbling even you use Facebook.
I can’t imagine online life without StumbleUpon, one of the best information and marketing tools available to web surfers.
Matt, I won’t be leaving SU anytime soon for FB.
Thanks for the link.
Hmm.. Maybe people are moving to Facebook ’cause of Facebook apps?
Personally, I find StumbleUpon much more useful for professionals than Facebook. I just don’t feel like spending my time @ Facebook. After they made the Facebook platform available for third-party developers, that place has become too cluttered. And I like the StumbleUpon idea of only 200 friends. 200 friends should be more than enough for a person unless you’re a hardcore marketer.
Recently, I find myself using StumbleUpon much more than any other social-network/news portal. I’m happy being among the professionals. Neither I’ve enough time to waste posting replies @ Facebook, nor am I gonna start spending my time at Facebook just ’cause of the freedom to make thousands of friends. People should take inspirations from those top stumblers. They may have only 200 ‘mutual friends’ but one should not ignore the ‘fan’ numbers.
Marty: You are welcome, Marty. Thanks for an informative post. I’m glad you aren’t about to ditch SU!
Avinash: Thank you for your insight, Avinash. I was just over at Facebook and realized someone had written on “my wall.” While this may be a unique feature, I’m not sure I will be able to keep up with all of that type of noise. I prefer a streamlined network which allows me to do what I want and move on.
Yes, the 200 limit really isn’t that bad — I periodically cull through my list and remove dormant accounts and add people who are strong SU users but not yet part of my network.
Hm… I am a Stumble fan too, although Facebook and LinkedIn are great for business contacts. But Stumble always has something fresh, the toolbar which displays how many messages from my friends I have is a dream, the 200 limit doesn’t even bother me - you can still be friends with people without adding them at a list and I personally don’t add friends based on their Stumble power (this is probably a mistake, but I am pretty happy with what Stumble is doing for me so far).
I have to say that I don’t find Stumble better for professionals than LinkedIn and Facebook - when it comes to business contacts I vote on these two.
What really bothers me at Stumble is the amount of “hi, wanna be my friend” I get from dubious men… Oh, but this must be a Stumble “girl thing” -
Mig, I don’t add people because of their stumble power but I do want my mutual friends to be regular users of StumbleUpon. I think if we want to reap the benefits of SU, then regularly participating is a minimum requirement.
As far as all of the attention you are receiving, that can be a good thing — guys will stumble your pages and, of course, want to be your friend.
The peril of being a guy magnet I suppose!
OMG! LMAO. I suppose you are right. But nevertheless I have more girls as my friends as men. And usually those who send me crappy messages don’t stumble my choices.
Not sure if Facebook is going to do much harm to SU. I constantly get get a lot of traffic from them. FB might experience their own problems sooner or later though?
Maybe SU should incorporate many of the social aspects of FB and Myspace…more than just the simple blog function they have?
A life without StumbleUpon…man, that’s just scary.
Seriously, I love stumble upon. I love discovering, finding and sharing new sites and articles. It’s also done a tremendous amount for my blog growth and I’ve met some really great folks too.
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It´s nearly unbelivable that facebook has got 50 Million user. This is a great number! I wish facebook would be mine
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Dogg,
I use both about the same amount (12 hours a day for each), and I’ve got to say SU and FB are very very different.
I use both StumbleUpon and Facebook. They both are completely different, so I see no need to ditch one for the other.
As far as networking goes, I think both can provide what you put into it. Either way, I’m a bigger “stumbler” than a facebook user–it’s just way more interesting!
Cheers!
Shauna
http://shauna26.wordpress.com
I use facebook and SU for different things. I still use stumbleupon a lot for finding new things. I use facebook to keep track of college friends and new business associates.
Social sites are soon becoming more important than search engines