Garfield Minus Garfield

It's so strange that StumbleUpon died but TikTok thrives today.

TikTok's algorithm is based entirely on when you click the Like button and when you linger on a video, exactly like StumbleUpon's algorithm. StumbleUpon even had a video product, StumbleVideo, that was basically just TikTok.

But, in 2018, when StumbleUpon shut down and sold their assets to Mix, the prevailing wisdom was that people didn't want to use StumbleUpon because they wanted to use Reddit and Facebook, to follow curated feeds of links, instead of random links that other people like.

If that wisdom were true, TikTok should have failed too, because TikTok just gives you "random stuff that similar people like," just like StumbleUpon.

I guess it just goes to show that there's no accounting for the rise and fall of social media apps/networks.

TikTok was mobile device centric, and the people that glommed onto it quickest were young mobile users. StumbleUpon was just a website that the "olds" used. Maybe I'm wrong, but did SU have a mobile app? If so, they did a very bad job of getting it into the hands of those that TikTok did.

StumbleVideo was exactly like TikTok, including focusing on mobile. The only material difference is that StumbleVideo's videos were landscape instead of portrait, and they had a "Stumble" button instead of swiping.

(Maybe it's the swiping gesture? Maybe the gesture is more comfortable in portrait?? But it's hard to see why that would make or break a video app like this…)

I used SumbleUpon but not their video service, but some differentiating factors is TikTok specializes specifically short form video content in an environment where creators are rewarded and incentivized to make addictive content.