eBay Looking to Sell StumbleUpon

TechCrunch is reporting that eBay (EBAY) has recruited Deutsche Bank (DB) in the hopes of finding a suitable buyer for StumbleUpon, the venerable website that allows its users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos.

StumbleUpon as a personalized recommendation engine, according to Comscore, had nearly 1.3 million global visitors and 25 million page views this past July. About a year earlier, the site was registering over 4.3 million global visitors and more than 30 million page views.

In May 2007, Internet auction site eBay bought StumbleUpon, which was founded in 2001 by three Canadian software engineers in Calgary, for $75 million. Early reports indicated the company was also in talks with Google (GOOG) before the eBay announcement. The deal, meant at the time that eBay would get access to almost 2.5 million registered users, delivering about 5 million recommendations every day.

Obviously, eBay’s acquisition has not produced the desired results and it appears the Internet auction site has a bit of buyer’s remorse. The expectation on part of eBay was that by promoting StumbleUpon on eBay and to Skype users could massively boost its user base. Things apparently haven’t materialized, thus pushing eBay to put the ‘for sale’ sign up.

Nevertheless, considering StumbleUpon is an Internet favorite, it wouldn’t be a surprise if eBay gets to resell it for what it paid originally. After all, the higher the number of registered users there are increases the company’s value. TechCrunch points out that StumbleUpon’s registered users have continued to rise steadily; the service had five million in April ‘08. As of this evening, the site shows over six million, a 20% rise in less than five months.

Disclosure: None

 

Comments

[J.Donahoe:]

Stock prices continue to rise, sellers & buyers are delighted with the policy's, and buyers can buy with confidence. Also customer service is always there to help when ever needed. Stop being sore tails! It's all for the eBay community.

2008 Sep 22 12:37 PM

[John Christ...:]

Check out glassdoor.com

Donahoe's rating as a CEO is around 29%

Even Dick Fuld the CEO of Lehman Brothers has a higher rating! LOL

2008 Sep 22 03:23 PM

[Et tu, Brute!:]

John Christopher:

Thanks for that heads-up. I can't help but wonder now if Pierre and the remainder of the board might be quietly-behind-the-sce... be scouting for a replacement CEO for John Donahoe. It can't be an easy call but I bet a little more care will be taken this time around. I doubt they want to continue being the most despised company online.

2008 Sep 22 05:46 PM

[Mr G:]

JD you are a broken record buddy! The only " sore tail" on this site is Ebay and it getting "sorer" every day. Get real JD! Did you buy in at $40/sh and you think you can manipulate this "has been" -or- is your job at Ebay in jeopardy and you are trying to prop up your retirement. You ought to short the stock and start making money. Skype was a great success for Ebay, I read you would be lucky to get 25 cent on the dollar for that brainchild. Sounds like StumbleUpon is strike TWO! Ebay will be a buy around 7-10. That would make for a good P/E multiple for this mature company with no future

WARNING: This e-mail is a suspected phishing scam.

2008 Sep 23 09:32 PM

[o.c.d.colle...:]

Why is all of this a surprise to the world?Ebay became what it "was" thanks to the online auctions it was the very first to succeed at. That is the one thing they abandoned, because the advertising parasites became a part of their entire genetic code. The sellers of these advertising services have been the modern day "Lucifer"to Ebay's execs. and caused the collapse of this company, with all of it's attending dunces who "bought into" all of the insanity that was sold to them. One of them writes articles here. Why that is, I guess we'll never know...but it matters not! Another company will take over where ebay left off, they are slowly gathering steam, and WILL BE providing the venue that was abandoned by ebay with slow and steady growth to their site at 5% a day. It is a privately owned company, otherwise I would stake a few grand on it at this time and date. Ebay stock?? No, not as long as Mr Wingo is part of the company's dealings.Poor choice, that's all I can say.

Ebay should have "partnered" with a company like paltalk, a privately owned company who has the best of the worlds' communities viewing and being able to communicate in a "live" fashion. Ebay never had to purchase anything but paypal and even that is getting messed up by the poor ebay decison making skills of the CEO's who now operate at the helm.

Whoever decided to hire them needs to fire them.Whoever they do business with now, needs to be halted until further actions are taken to rid the top execs from the site, and then let the poor place be for a while so it can settle from all the turmoil and painful mistakes it has made.

I would not buy this stock now. The quarterlies are due in a few weeks and that will be even worse news, as well as added lies from the top execs there who mask the truth with paypal's successes. The new company who will steal all of the antiques and collectibles business from ebay will be ready to pick up all the lost sellers that ebay tossed off for having the "4's" that ebay states are "acceptable" to the buyer when pushing the buyer to click that number, but "NOT acceptable" to the seller when allowing them to remain on the site. They still need to re-define what a "4" is to both sellers and buyers, because there is misinformation there that has never been addressed. We're talking "simple" here, people, this is not rocket science!A number cannot have 2 definitions and be used as a grade for a fee paying seller.(thank goodness I stopped listing there too! I left my ratings all high!LOL!)

2008 Sep 24 12:44 PM

[o.c.d.colle...:]

That being said, above, if ebay manages to go into recovery by giving up the bad parasitic advice they've been getting, then there might be a possiblity they can recover some of their status, but they will need to scale down considerably, and go back to their roots where they actually knew what to do, and that was, in the past, listen to the sellers, then...get rid of the ad word junk all over their site.There was nothing wrong with the up front fees being raise a few cents. They would not have lost customers over that. The high percentage of sales price? They will lose sellers for THAT! I refuse to list under those circumstances. I'm sure the big retailers that they now have on the site would NEVER get charged that kind of percentage of the sales..

2008 Sep 24 12:51 PM

[Chelle9:]

435 eBay sellers have filled out the eBay 2008 changes how do they effect you survey - Make sure you do too

There is a new survey concerning eBay & PayPal user agreements as well

Fill them out and pass the link to every seller you know

2008 Sep 28 05:59 AM

[HATEFEEBAY:]

I never saw the survey as yet, I would love to see it! Ebay is losing customers and sellers quickly. Their feedback, SNAD, DSR's, suspensions of GREAT sellers are only addressing a few. The stock is going and FEEbay as a platform is losing steam at a rate never seen before. I have been seling on there since 199 and saw a lot of changes and whined through some of them, but this Dunahoe idiot as their CEO takes 1st place for most out of touch CEO I ever saw. The shareholders need t hve a no confidence vote for him and BLOW HIM OUT. I saw SHORT THE STOCK, but what do I know? I am only a lowly Wharton School graduate and I have a shooting star by my name on FEEbay-lol. Oh yes, I am suspended with a 98.3 feedback 4.7, 4.7, 4.7 and 4.4 for S/H?!?!? Ebay Ghestapo Trust and Safety said I was in the bottom 1% of all sellers-I have a 30 day suspension and did NOTHING WRONG! Damn that palce, but thank God I have my own website. Gary

2008 Sep 28 03:36 PM