What is StumbleUpon? StumbleUpon Review

What is StumbleUpon? StumbleUpon Review

Visit Stumbleupon at http://stumbleupon.com/

StumbleUpon: Your Personalized Discovery of the Web

How many webpages exist in the digital realm? A WHOLE LOT. In order to narrow those down to just your interests, you would need the help of a search engine. Sure, Google, Bing, and MSN all do a good job of returning relevant results, but the question is: Are those results really what you’re looking for?

What if you just want to see everything worth reading about art, books, and travel? What if you just want to continually click on one button and have those reads delivered straight to you? Well, that’s exactly the model that StumbleUpon follows.

What is StumbleUpon?

In its most basic sense, StumbleUpon is a web discovery tool that is personalized to fit your interests. It operates on the idea of clicking one button aptly called “Stumble” which gives you a page with content related to your interests.

It gives you these results based on what you tell it. In other words, it gives you what you want based on what you have liked and added to your interests on the site (this is a step you have to go through when signing up on the site).

For example, you added the category “Photography” to your interests. When you visit the Photography page on your profile, you will be presented with an article related to the topic. This cycle repeats every time you click on the “Stumble” button.

StumbleUpon is a great tool for hunting down good articles and web content. Often times you can find amazing things that you would not find from any regular search engine. It is also a good way to expose or promote new content to other web users.

So, how does StumbleUpon get all these articles?

Basically, it’s all the result of user interest. If a web visitor comes across an article they like or don’t like, they can “upvote” or “downvote” on it using the StumbleUpon toolbar.

An accumulation of what’s liked and what’s not is what allows StumbleUpon to give you results that are based on your interests.

So, in other words, the results you’re getting is based on the recommendations of users who share your interests plus a little machine learning from the site.

A little StumbleUpon history

StumbleUpon was founded in November 2001 by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justine LaFrance, and Eric Boyd when Camp was in post-graduate school in Calgary, Canada. They had five or six ideas, but it was StumbleUpon they settled with.

Once it gained enough attention, a Silicon Valley investor named Brad O’Neill assisted the group in moving to San Francisco. Not only that, his support also brought in other angel investors into the picture.

Over the years, the site continued to develop and also touched the mobile market through its mobile app.

StumbleUpon Features

• Stumble DNA

StumbleUpon has a list of DNA Categories, each of which contain a subtopic related to the parent node. For example, if you liked a lot of pages of animals, nature, and camping, StumbleUpon will consider you a big fan of the Outdoors. Basically, your DNA will tell the site which topics you really enjoy.

StumbleUpon DNA gauges what you like

• “Stumble” button

Discover articles related to your interests by continually clicking on this button.

Click the Stumble button to begin your journey

• Thumbs up button

Lets StumbleUpon know that you would like to see pages similar to this in the future. Whatever you give a “thumbs up” will be listed in the “Likes” section of your profile.

Give items a thumb up or down

• Thumbs down button

Basically tells StumbleUpon that you don’t like an article presented to you so it shows you less articles of the same kind. You can give further information by clicking on the dropdown button beside it and choosing from a list of reasons why you don’t like it.

• Share

Lets you share what you discovered on StumbleUpon with your other social networks.

Share your favorites with your friends

• StumbleUpon Lists

You can create lists that helps you better organize the pages that you have liked.

Make and use lists to organize your items

• Comments

Just like any other social network, you can comment on pages to let other users know your take on the topic.

Add comments so that others can find great content

• Add A Web Page

At Stumbleupon you have the option of “adding” interesting web pages that you come across. You can also add a description and keywords to better explain the page.

Add pages at StumbleUpon so they can be discovered

Of course, just like other social platforms, you can also follow people and see a list of people who follow you.

StumbleUpon gives you results based on your interests, and to get more of what you want, you have to give the content a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” This way, you really get to personalize what you see in your StumbleUpon account.

We are a big fan of Stumbleupon and you are always invited to visit us there at http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/ImpactSocialMe1 If you have questions or comments about Stumbleupon or if you would like to tell us about your profile there feel free to add your comment to this thread.

Video: What Is StumbleUpon?