4 posts and columns on Geoff Smith

StumbleUpon Gets a Face-Lift and Some Boldfaced Names

in Social on December 5, 2011 at 9:06 pm PT

StumbleUpon, the social discovery engine that was famously acquired by eBay, only to take itself private again two years later, is reinventing itself again.
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StumbleUpon's Garrett Camp Speaks (About Being a Born-Again Start-up)!

in News on April 20, 2009 at 12:00 pm PT

Last week, StumbleUpon announced it was buying itself out of its much-vaunted previous corporate buyout, by being born again as an “investor-baked start-up.” The Canadian-born social-bookmarking company, which was launched earlier, came to the Bay area in 2006 and got some fancy venture investors and soon became a traffic-generating hit. Then StumbleUpon was bought by eBay two years ago for $75 million in one of Web 2.0′s high points. End of a fairy tale? Um, nope. Here’s CEO and co-founder Garrett Camp, talking to BoomTown in a video interview about it all.

YouTube Preps Its (Sort of) Hulu Answer: Movies, TV Shows From Sony, Others

in Media on April 16, 2009 at 1:52 pm PT

Here’s Google’s sort-of answer to Hulu: A newly designed page to showcase TV shows and movies, along with new players and a new ad strategy. What’s not included: almost any first-run TV show or newly released movie. That’s the content that’s made Hulu successful and what’s also driven traffic to offerings from CBS and Disney’s ABC. You can’t accuse the Google guys of overselling this: In a press conference today, they described it as a “first step, a baby step.”
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StumbleUpon Stumbles Out of eBay's Arms to Be Reborn as a Start-Up (Plus the Entire Press Release)

in News on April 13, 2009 at 1:20 pm PT

The content-discovery service, StumbleUpon, has gotten itself back to start-up status, after being bought by eBay two years ago. It announced today that it was returning to being an “investor-backed startup” by a roster of well-known Silicon Valley investors, including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital. Its founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, are also back, with Camp now in place as CEO. “We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,” said Camp, stating the very obvious. That’s quite a boomerang since it was acquired by the auction giant in 2007 for $75 million.