It’s Official: StumbleUpon Purchased by eBay

Earlier this month, we brought you word that eBay was showing a significant amount of interesting in one of the more unique search engines on the Web, StumbleUpon. Today, we bring you news that eBay has officially acquired the recommendation site.

For the same amount the rumor mill was throwing about, too.

Yes, StumbleUpon sold its soul over to the auction-house-in-so-many-areas-of-the-tech-industry-that-it-doesn’t-know-what-to-do-with-itself for a sizable $75 million in cash. We’re still curious to learn exactly why eBay has taken a now-public $75m liking to StumbleUpon, so we’ll continue to default to the simplistic reasoning that the business is doing well (it is the best of its kind), and is therefore a smart buy.

An engine that allows users to discover new sites and promote or downgrade the pages they randomly come across, most often with the use of a browser toolbar, StumbleUpon can be seen as something of a social search tool; it’s interesting arguably because of the “people” factor, whereas engines like Google and Yahoo! are very clinical in their processes.

Also, the more it’s used (StumbleUpon claims its members “add more than five million recommendations a day), the smarter it gets, while still offering “stumblers” a very fresh experience every session they spend with it.

Originally a one-dimensional service that only searched Web pages, StumbleUpon has grown to encompass videos as well, and now throws its userbase into the fold in a section called (appropriately) ‘People.’

Don’t expect eBay to make any attempts to work StumbleUpon into the core of its business. The acquisition will more or less exist as an asset that will continue to be cultivated as a solitary entity. Do expect, however, to see StumbleUpon attempt to work its way up the search ladder.