While his Web 2.0-era peers sold their companies and founded new ones, Garrett Camp stuck with StumbleUpon for 10 years since creating it as a grad student. That included selling the company to eBay for $75 million, buying it back, and notching 25 million registered users as of last month.

Ten years seems about long enough, Camp said today. “It was my first job and my first love,” he explained.

Camp hasn’t been exclusively focused on StumbleUpon. He co-founded the on-demand ride service Uber and is chairman there as well.

Camp said he’s been thinking about stepping back for years, and more seriously in the past six months. I asked if he wouldn’t have rather quit when Uber was getting started a few years back.

Camp said no. He does have a few new start-up ideas he’s thinking about, but they would be “virtual” products, unlike the real-world challenge of Uber. Camp said Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is better suited to that operational role, where Camp wants to work on products.

StumbleUpon co-founder Geoff Smith is to stay in his position as CTO.

The company is rolling out a newly redesigned Web site that features a new logo, new colors and an integrated “Explore Box,” or search engine, that had previously only been available in beta.

StumbleUpon has also signed up 250 partners for channels on the site, which will act as verticals users can “follow” in order to get the interesting content they want. The partners include such Web sites as Yelp, Gilt Groupe, Vanity Fair and Funny or Die, as well high-profile names like actor Jim Carrey, athletes Mariano Rivera and Paul Pierce, and late-night TV host Chelsea Handler.

While StumbleUpon is getting a face-lift and adding some boldfaced names, it isn’t changing any of its back-end technology: Users will still “stumble” from site to site, which will be served up to them based on StumbleUpon’s algorithm that factors in interests, likes and your friends’ interests.

StumbleUpon founder and CEO Garrett Camp said the redesign was spurred by feedback the company was getting from users in focus groups. Basically, while the users liked the site’s signature stumbling action (which I previously called a procrastinator’s friend and insomniac’s dream), they wanted easier ways to follow their favorite brands and content.

“Some of the words we used when describing StumbleUpon were surprising, adventurous, exciting, and when we put our logo in brand in front of test users, they weren’t saying that,” Camp said. “We wanted to make it that for them, while also simplifying the site.”

StumbleUpon launched in 2001 as a way for people to find interesting content on the Web. In 2007, the company was acquired by eBay for $75 million. Then, in 2009, Camp, his co-founder Geoff Smith and other investors bought the company back and took it private again. The site went through a minor refresh then, but these new updates mark the first major visual changes to StumbleUpon since it was created. The company currently claims 20 million users and more than 1.2 billion stumbles per month.

While recent data showed that StumbleUpon is now the biggest referrer of traffic to other U.S. Web sites — beating out even Facebook for that title — the changes come as giants like Google and Facebook are dominating the Web ad space, with other Web services clawing for more market share, as my colleague Peter Kafka reported earlier. StumbleUpon’s entire revenue model is advertising — around 3 to 5 percent of all stumbles will land on an ad — and the company is uncertain whether these new celeb channels will end up being new ad space.

It’s the Wild Wild Web out there, kids.

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, had come to the Bay area in 2006 and got some fancy angel investors, who ponied up a couple of million dollars. It soon became a traffic-generating hit.

Then, StumbleUpon was bought by eBay (EBAY) two years ago for $75 million in one of Web 2.0′s high points.

End of a fairy tale? Um, nope.

Soon enough, due to both buyers’ and sellers’ remorse, rumors of the San Francisco-based company being sold by its new owners swirled around it, although there was no sale.

Instead, last week, StumbleUpon announced that a roster of well-known Silicon Valley investors, including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners and August Capital, would return it to its roots.

Its founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith were included, with Camp as CEO.

In a video interview he did with BoomTown, here’s Camp talking all about the latest shift for his start-up, including discussing some more changes on the site, such as an even more personalized Webification of the content discovery service.

Here’s the video:

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.”

Google (GOOG) did say that it had added new content partners, but it was maddeningly imprecise about which ones it had signed up and what content they were providing. The company did confirm, however, that Sony (SNE), via its Crackle video site, would be providing content.

Google also said that it now has “thousands” of television shows and “hundreds” of movies; prior to this, the company said its catalog consisted of just “hundreds” of TV shows and “dozens” of movies.

But this is still primarily “long tail” stuff. The only first-run CBS (CBS) show YouTube offers, for instance, is “Harper’s Island,” which YouTube already offered. And if you recognize any of the following new YouTube partners, then it means you’re a show business insider: Endemol, Anime Network, Scott Entertainment, Entertainment Rights, Shout Factory, Telenext Media, Documentary Channel, First Look Studios, IndieFlix, Saavn, Snag Films, Venevision and Bandai.

Still, YouTube needs as much licensed content it can get its hands on in order to lure more advertisers to the site, which has underperformed to date.

Advertisers who do want to sign up will have a new option: a “Google TV ads” product that inserts ads into the shows, à la Google’s Adsense for Web publishers. Google said it will use “pre-roll,” “mid-roll” and “post-roll” ads–i.e., video ads that run before, during and after the movie or TV show–as well as the overlay ads that cover the bottom part of the screen, briefly, with a translucent pitch.

Google will also allow video providers to sell their own content, and in some cases, will allow them to use their own video player, a first for the company. Sony, for instance, will use its Crackle video player for its content.

Reports that YouTube had a deal with Sony to show full-length movies and TV shows on the site surfaced earlier this month. Last month, reports also indicated that YouTube was talking to Disney (DIS) about getting movies and ABC TV shows on the site, but since then I’ve been told that Hulu, the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and GE’s (GE) NBC, has all but locked up ABC shows for an exclusive deal.

Here are two releases, one describing the new section and the other describing the new ad product. Screenshots follow.

Watch Shows and Movies on YouTube: Today we’re excited to announce a new destination for television shows and an improved landing page for movies on YouTube, where partners like Crackle, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate, Starz, the BBC and many others have made thousands of television episodes and hundreds of movies available for you to watch, comment on, favorite and share. This addition is one of many efforts underway to ensure that we’re offering you all the different kinds of video you want to see, from bedroom vlogs and citizen journalism reports to music videos and full-length films and TV shows.

To help you navigate through all this great content, we’re introducing two new tabs to the YouTube masthead: the “Shows” tab allows you to browse shows by genre, network, title and popularity, while the “Subscriptions” tab will grant logged-in users one-click access to fresh content from their favorite creators.

Another change you’ll notice today is the wider roll-out of in-stream ads, which we’ve been testing since October, to support our shows and movies content — not unlike what you might see when viewing this type of content on TV.

While shows and movies are currently limited to users in the US, we look forward to expanding to other regions as soon as possible.

We hope you enjoy watching shows and movies on YouTube. There’s still work to be done and we look forward to iterating with you, whether that’s rolling out new engagement features, expanding our content offering or improving your viewing experience. And, as with everything we do, we’ll track your usage and feedback to preserve your fundamental YouTube experience while we take these steps to enhance it.

Yours,
Sara Pollack
Entertainment Marketing Manager
The YouTube Team

Reach TV viewers through more than one screen
By Geoff Smith, Product Manager for Google TV Ads

Google TV Ads makes it easy for advertisers of all sizes to reach customers watching television. These days, many full-length television programs are also available for Internet users to watch online. These programs may appear in various places, including the websites of the networks which originally broadcast them and on other sites that specialize in video content. What if an advertiser wants to reach the audience of a particular program, no matter whether they’re watching on a television or online?

We’re excited to announce the beta launch of Google TV Ads Online. This is a new feature of Google TV Ads that lets advertisers place commercials into the ad breaks of TV programs watched online. It works in the same way as Google TV Ads: advertisers can target specific programs and select their cost-per-thousand (CPM) bid. Based on their targets, budget and bid, ads are inserted in the same program breaks that were designed for advertising when the programs first aired. (Ads may also be shown “pre-roll”, before the program begins, or after the online presentation of the program “post-roll.”) And like Google TV ads, we provide advertisers with measurement tools that give greater insight into how their ads perform with users.

One website where viewers are consuming more and more full-length content online is YouTube. Today, YouTube launched a new destination for full-length shows and movies, and advertisers will be able to use Google TV Ads Online to reach the millions of people who come to YouTube to watch this content. That’s not only good for advertisers, but content partners who are looking to generate revenue from their videos online. Ads will also be shown on other websites that carry full-length video programs.

Google TV Ads Online is still in beta and available to advertisers by invitation only. If you’re interested in learning more about it or would like to be considered for the program, please contact Erin Bouchier at erinb@google.com.

Here’s what the new YouTube video player looks like in full-screen mode (click to enlarge):

And here’s a “landing page” for YouTube TV shows:

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.

Before that event, which was at the height of the Web 2.0 fervor, the Canadian-born social-bookmarking start-up, which launched several years ago, came to the Bay area in 2006 and got some fancy venture investors (Mitch Kapor, Ron Conway, Shriram and others) who ponied up a couple of million dollars. It soon became a traffic-generating hit.

But rumors of the San Francisco-based company being sold by eBay (EBAY) have swirled around it almost since it was bought, although there was no sale.

The same has been true for eBay’s other purchase, of voice-over-IP service Skype. A recent report in the New York Times said its founders were also considering buying Skype back from eBay.

Under eBay, the site has floundered a little bit, but made some changes, such as unveiling a new Web-centric look and feel and a new partnering program last fall that represented a major shift for the online discovery service.

In that change, users no longer had to register for the service or download its toolbar to “stumble” the Web.

Terms of the deal were not released, but we’re digging! Um, stumbling!

More to come, but here’s the full press release from the company, as well as a video I did at the party StumbleUpon threw after getting acquired by eBay, including an interview with then-thrilled Camp:

StumbleUpon Goes Independent; Backed by Founders and New Investors

April 13, 2009 – StumbleUpon, the best way to discover new content on the Internet, today announced that after nearly 2 years as a subsidiary of eBay Inc., it has returned to the ranks of an investor-backed startup. StumbleUpon is now backed by the original company founders, Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith, as well as a number of well-known investors including Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures, Accel Partners, and August Capital. Camp takes on the role of CEO of StumbleUpon.

“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. “This change makes it possible for StumbleUpon to continue to innovate and focus on becoming the Web’s largest recommendation service.”

“StumbleUpon helps users discover the best of the web–it’s a way to find interesting content you wouldn’t think to search for,” said Shriram. “StumbleUpon’s personalized recommendation engine brings serendipity back to websurfing, and lets users sift through socially-endorsed content with a single click.”

StumbleUpon will remain focused on helping people discover interesting content by increasing the accessibility of the StumbleUpon service and the quality of recommendations. In addition, StumbleUpon has plans for several new products and features to be released in the upcoming months.