Make Seriously | Design and Life

Sometimes, being the stumbling block ain’t so bad…

In my last (and thus far only) installment in my web 2.0 discussions I went over Twitter and it’s uses for marketers. I know far less about how to creatively manipulate todays subject: StumbleUpon. I will make the best of it, however, and show some of my own startling results due to the use of this content networking tool.

StumbleUpon is, at it’s core, a virtual network that collects user ratings, reviews, and recommendations for online content and passes it on to other users. That is, to say, it allows people to say what they think is cool and noteworthy. If enough people agree, the network begins to emphasize that content. So, if 500 people “stumble upon” Radiohead giving away their album online (without any other press) and all of them say “hey! look at this!” it will start to show up in other users StumbleUpon content. Then those people will be encouraged to visit Radiohead’s site, and if they think it’s cool then the momentum builds. In a bit more detail later, I’ll explain why this has some pretty incredible potential.

A little background first. StumbleUpon is relatively new. It was founded in 2001, and only breaking the million user mark in 2006 (and then rapidly growing it’s user base). It was founded by Garret Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance, and Eric Boyd, and has received investments from bigwigs at the likes of Google, Mozilla, and First Round Capital. In 2007, it was purchased by America’s favorite online auction site: eBay. (I prefer Amazon, myself…)

What is StumbleUpon
That’s the real question. It’s also where the train moves fast, so buckle up and hold on tight because I’ve never been accused of having a way with words (also a great radio show on WFYI radio on the weekends…)

StumbleUpon (hereafter referred to as SU) uses a process called “collaborative filtering.” This process begins as users submit their “stumbles”, basically providing their human opinion. This is where they let everyone know what they think it worth looking at. In the second part of this process, SU uses “machine learning of personal preference” to work through the submitted information and segment the users into virtual networks of like-minded users. This means that SU has a mathematical, intuitive formula that says “these people all tend to like these things, so I’ll place them together into segments”. It’s sort of like a venn diagram with five million spheres of influence. Here’s an example of how interests could overlap and result in a single common interest that puts a single user into multiple spheres of influence.

So, as users “stumble” new content, their profiles are updated and SU generates a peer network based on that information and links users by common interest. These networks are arranged to disseminate information that is explicitly recommended by other peers in the network. As each user in that network stumbles it, it has the potential to spread to other shared networks. Users can also, if they choose to be social, participate in rating one another and joining in on discussions in the SU message boards.

In 2006 SU extended their process to include videos. StumbleUpon Video aggregates videos from YouTube, Google Video, Myspace and Metacafe and uses it’s process for video content. A version of SU Video was released in early 2007 for Wii users.

SU also has sponsored ads that take advantage of it’s segmentation method and can target very specific user groups with material relevant to their interests.

Now for the real power of SU. A while ago, a friend read my blog and “stumbled” it. Now, I’m nothing big or important, but here’s how my daily traffic pattern went: 3, 3, 4, 2, 0, 0, 3, 1, 140, 32, 15, 3. Notice something there? That was the day I got stumbled. Now, if all of you slackers took my advice with Twitter, you could have subscribed to my feed. When I post, you could “stumble” my work, and then it kind of would maybe mushroom cloud from there. Of course, what I write about is maybe slightly amusing at best, so people would catch on quickly. BUT, in the meantime, I could once again experience how it feels to be one of the cool kids in high school as my narcissistic side screams “look at me! I have a blog!”

As a business model, however, it is clear that it’s a powerful tool when used in conjunction with other social “news spreading” tools. So, sometimes, being stumbled on isn’t such a bad thing. (now go stumble me darnit!)

Marketers have some lessons to learn.

I spent a good portion of the last few years studying two things: design and propaganda. During that time I learned a thing or two about influencing people and getting action from that influence, and the role that images play in that. Over the course of my lifetime, marketers have been pretty good at taking those principles of design and propaganda and employing them to move products off shelves. Over the last couple of years, however, a few problems have presented themselves:

1 | Marketers have quit being creative in favor of banking on the creativity of other people.
2 | Marketing students have learned business models, and have not focused on creativity.
3 | The market sees the greatest influence from creative, private citizens.

Those problems, of course, are a vicious cycle. Marketing students, focusing on business instead of creativity, need to find creative solutions to promoting their products. A lot of times they work with firms to control the image and visual promotion of a product. Lately, however, it seems that they forego finding creative, unique, solutions to their problem and instead opt for the “viral thing”. Facebooking works, right? Well. It can. And viral marketing can be successful when done well and when unique to the product. Of course, the whole viral concept is best evidenced with the spread of random, quirky videos. Of course, not all videos are as… cruel… as that one. But the interesting point to make is that the video has been watched nearly ten million times. What about that low production video makes it worth viewing ten million times? It’s not particularly well done, it’s not useful. It is, however, interesting, and there’s a demand for it. And that’s where marketers, lacking creative training, turn so often to promote their products. It’s worked before, right? So it must keep working, right? And that’s where it falls apart. Creativity isn’t recycled, it’s reimagined. Recreated. Remade. It’s not something you can copy, but something you can learn from and move in a new direction.

That said, I find myself continually impressed by the Obama campaign, and tonight’s “infomercial” is perhaps the most compelling part of it. When was the last time that something like this came from a candidate? (other than Ross Perot… the answer is Kennedy) It’s huge, and despite the criticisms Obama has faced for making this move, I find it a particularly meaningful and creative approach to solving a problem in his campaign. So far, there’s been a clear difference in the visual vernacular of each campaign. One asks for patriotism (country first), and the other plays on the thing Americans seem to want most (hope and change). Artists have continually supported Obama and created compelling images which have become part of the campaign. The debates painted a calm, cool, collected image in contrast to McCain’s aggressive, time-to-fight attitude. And tonight, it seems that the image has come full circle as Obama takes the time to address the nation as a whole, for a period of time, focusing on what he has to bring to the nation. It’s moving, and it takes an otherwise divided nation and joins them through stories that all of us can relate to and offering solutions to the problems we face. It sends chills down my spine, and I applaud it as a great, creative marketing solution.