In May 2007, eBay acquired StumbleUpon, the website recommendation engine, for a cool $75 million. Now, less than 18 months later, sources close to the online auction and shopping website claim that they are trying to get rid of it.
According to
TechCrunch's source, eBay has hired Deutsche Bank to find the right buyer, though the asking price is unknown. It is unclear as to whether eBay will be able to flip StumbleUpon for more than it paid, or even the price they paid. In July, StumbleUpon had 1.3 million worldwide visitors and 25 million page views. Twelve months earlier, the service attracted 4.4 million visitors and 31 million page views (Comscore). A pretty significant fall in traffic.
However, registered users have continued to rise at a steady rate. The service had 5 million in April 2008 and showed 6,003,763 on September 18th, 2008, a 20% rise in under than 5 months.