StumbleUpon Acquired By eBay: “Just Rumors,” Says Founder

Apr 18, 2007 at 4:32pm ET by Chris Sherman

The blogosphere is abuzz with rumors that eBay is acquiring StumbleUpon, but they’re “just rumors,” Garrett Camp, one of StumbleUpon’s founders just told me on the phone. “There have been rumors before and that’s what they are now,” Camp said.

Of course, if the company is in play, Camp would likely be bound by non-disclosure agreements, so the rumors could possibly turn out to have some merit. We’ll follow the story and report any further details if and when they are confirmed.

Meanwhile, it’s interesting reading the speculation about why eBay, a vast auction site, would be interested in acquiring a comparatively small, selective web search service (more about StumbleUpon and how it works in my Q&A With Garrett Camp, Founder & Chief Architect, StumbleUpon).

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch with eBay Acquiring StumbleUpon offers a bit of background on the rumors, which have been going on since November (he says Google and AOL are also potential suitors), and Om Malik speculates that StumbleUpon might be a credible competitor to Google if integrated into the eBay’s Skype client in his Why eBay wants Stumbleupon post.

Chris Sherman is Executive Editor of SearchEngineLand.com and President of Searchwise LLC, a Boulder Colorado based Web consulting firm. He also programs and co-chairs the Search Marketing Expo - SMX conference series.

See more articles by Chris Sherman >

Share, Bookmark & Discuss This Article
More:

See more stories like this in the Members Library! Check out the Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, Search Engines: StumbleUpon sections of the Members Library where this story is filed. Members also get access to exclusive video content, a members-only weekly & monthly newsletter, plus more. Check out all the benefits!

FREE DAILY SEARCH NEWS RECAP!