The Internet is abuzz over eBay’s supposed acquisition of StumbleUpon – more interesting is that the very same day, Google releases a StumbleUpon-like button on the Google Toolbar. Om Malik thinks this is anything but a coincidence.

To add another layer to this, see my post from about a month and a half ago where I ask if Google’s Toolbar was basically StumbleUpon before StumbleUpon was (via a find by Google Operating System). Google had what was the equivalent of the StumbleUpon thumbs-up and thumbs-down (with smiley faces) and now they have the ‘Stumble’ button (a pair of dice).

It seems like Google dropped the ball here both in its failure to acquire StumbleUpon and its failure to realize that they may have had what was basically a StumbleUpon service before StumbleUpon existed…and they decided not to pursue it.

I plan on going deeper into this tomorrow on Pronet, be sure to check it out.