eBay in talks to buy StumbleUpon

19 April 2007

Online auction and shopping website eBay is in talks to buy StumbleUpon a tailored-search website.

StumbleUpon was founded in 2001 by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith and Justin LaFrance at the end of their post-graduate study.

It is rumoured that currently negotiations would see the company sold for around $40-45 million, technology blog TechCrunch has reported.

The company provides a search toolbar that chooses curious and interested websites that the user might be interested in.

Much like Google, the site uses knowledge of user’s preferences acquired through the searches to deliver targeted advertising.

StumbleUpon also uses peer recommendations and social networking to make its searches, as well as having blogging capabilities.

The site also added a video searching capability at the end of last year, searching through YouTube, Google and Myspace for popular and recommended videos.

The site's number of users has been reported as being between one and two million.

It was also reported that Google and AOL might compete with eBay for StumbleUpon.

Google recently added a new recommended search feature to its toolbar, similar to the services provided by StumbleUpon.

Category: Miscellaneous