Gaming the Stumble System? Say It Ain’t So
StumbleUpon is one of my favorite website discovery tools. I use it not just for browsing but also for inspiration; I’ve included it in “The Well,” an inspiration-on-demand page I created for my solo practice blog, The Inspired Solo. I find that there’s often a serendipitous effect in clicking that little blue and green button - I’m often led to just the site I need to see for whatever mood I’m then in, or whatever problem I’m then facing. Plus, it’s the thrill of the random, and the fun of discovery.
Now, Mashable tells us there’s a blackhat op calling itself SubvertandProfit (and just like Mashable, I’m not linking to it) which is paying users cash for promoting its advertisers’ sites via the SU button. It goes live today:
“The new StumbleUpon service will go live on July 16th, with the site presumably charging the same $1/vote rate to advertisers, while only giving social media users $.50 for voting on an entire list of sites.”
Like Michael Martine, I think this (to be blunt) sucks. Says Michael:
I hope StumbleUpon plans to fight this. There’s nothing wrong with doing it, legally, but because StumbleUpon is only worth the value of its links to its users, it would be in Stumbl[e]Upon’s best interest (that
being the best interests of its users) to fight any attempts to game their system with cash.
Instead of looking for cash this way, why not add something of value - real value - to the web community? I found a new way to do just that this weekend - well, new to me - in HubPages, a site that allows you to create webpages and monetize them easily and quickly using tools such as eBay and Amazon affiliate programs and Google’s AdSense. I created this page, my first “hub,” in less than 30 minutes. It’s free to use; the tradeoff is that you split your profits with HubPages. I’m actually OK with that, given how easy the site makes it to get going and add content (absolutely zero technical skills required). Go give it a whirl and tell me what you think in the comments!
Technorati Tags: StumbleUpon, blackhat social media
July 16th, 2007 at 11:35 am
I’m really kind of surprised that hasn’t more of an outcry over this (although I got over 400 visitors recently from StumbleUpon, so at least I know Stumblers care).
Thanks for posting about HubPages–I had seen ads for them but didn’t know what they were. It sounds interesting!
July 16th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Absolutely - thanks for adding to the conversation and alerting me to it. This is really strange - given this, and the “paid comments” thing last week, I’m just as surprised as you that there isn’t a blog revolt going on. Are all the bloggers at the beach?
HubPages is pretty cool, for what it is - a quick, free, easy way to get some monetized content going. Not terribly customizable in terms of aesthetics, but maybe that’s coming. Still, if it gets more people out there offering valuable content, I’m all for it.
Thanks for commenting, Michael! Keep up the great work at your blog.