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Monday, October 06, 2008

Idiot Report - StumbleUpon vs. ImpNerd - Who's to Blame?

Call me sick but as long as no one's really getting hurt, I just love a good drama. And, please, don't even dare to tell me that you don't, too...!

So, in one corner, weighing in at 38lbs soaking wet, we have ImpNerd, a blogger who really lives up to his moniker. Just recently, he found that not only was his StumbleUpon account frozen but also the accounts of all those he invited to join him in a StumbleUpon Love-In, or, as some might also call it, "StumbleLove" - not for mutual Stumble exchanges but, as he insists,
"A love-in is to create a 'group' of like minded people. Even StumbleUpon has groups in their forums which they actively promote."
It all seems to have started here in his (now updated) post, "Entrecard Community StumbleUpon Love-In".

In the other corner, we have StumbleUpon, "a Web 1.0 multinational conglomerate" as one person joked, which, though it has many fine and friendly users, is known for also having a very sick, and demented, core of social media whores, aka Stumble Trolls, who take both themselves, and their "stumbling" very seriously -- in fact, a little TOO seriously: "Justice Reigns - Stumble Troll Banned by SU."

Because StumbleUpon fears that Stumble Love-Ins have the potential to water down the Stumble community with mutual stumble exchanges of potentially useless crap, StumbleUpon frowns upon it. In fact, forbids it. YET, as ImpNerd argues, Problogger, owned by renowned blogger Darren Rowse, has a Stumble group of about 300+...and wonders, should they not suffer the same fate as he and his tiny little attempt at a 3rd-party Stumble group?
"I wonder why exactly they targeted my blog. A far better way to go would be to target Probloggers list of 300+ SU members or the many others who have hundreds."
So, my question to the reader is, "Is this a case of ImpNerd, and similar, getting what they deserved because 'ignorance of the rules is no excuse and/or they should have taken greater care to check the TOS first' or 'Is StumbleUpon being a typical entity that has grown so big that it hasn't the resources to deal with the public in a more intelligent and considerate manner than snap-banning someone and just firing off an irritating, irrelevant form letter explaining TOS?"

Keep in mind, as Chris Brogan, a social media celebrity likes to insist upon, "... it's all about the conversation." Well, did StumbleUpon give ImpNerd the opportunity to have that conversation?

It seems not. But, lo and behold... The Great Flagship Entrecard did! You can see the whole thing unfolding at that link.

ps. Here's another article on the matter.

Sam Freedom"s Internet Marketing Controversy Blog

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7 comments:

Amber * said...

Great post.

You can view my take on this BS,since I was one of the participants who was banned this morning:

StumbleUpon Targets Bloggers

Spread the word!

Unknown said...

With StumbleUpon, this should be quite easy. If you don’t already have a webpage in mind, Stumble through different categories on StumbleUpon using the ‘Stumble’ button.
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Anonymous said...

I think you hit the nail on the head with the TOS comment. Who actually reads these? I know I don't, but then I do not try and set up groups like this.

Peter said...

i was part of the problogger love in, and I've been frozen now. Ugh.. I hate when they take themselves too seriously.

EC0-350 braindumps said...

you seem in anger. and you are not sick. you are at the right side.and stumble upon is very easy. i think you didn't give it much time.

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