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Posted On
Aug 23, 2007
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StumbleUpon is an intelligent browsing tool that gives it users a whole new way to experience the Internet. Instead of searching for specific items on search engines like Google, Stumble Upon users only have to tag specific personal or professional interests and then ‘channel surf’ the web by simply clicking on a button on Stumble Upon tool bar.
Upon doing so, the users are directed to the website of their interest. Users can then choose to tag the webpage they are on to indicate if they want to see it again.
Users can also use the Stumble Upon toolbar as a form of social book marking. By surfing the web and tagging or submitting specific websites, each user can keep track of which websites they like and share it with others.
To start you have to install the toolbar, which is very compatible with I.E. and Firefox at Stumble Upon’s website. After that you can check if your website is already listed on Stumble Upon. You can do this by visiting this page and typing in your site’s URL.
This site can do wonders, it can drive massive traffic to a specific webpage or website that’s been stumbled. If you just wrote a great article or created a website which offered creative and useful content, you’ll want as many eyeballs on it as possible.
Once your website gets stumbled, it’ll usually start to immediately receive visitors from all over the world. This gives a rapid exposure to your website or brand. It further helps you establish a reader base for your blogs and add back links from Stumble Upon visitors with websites.
The site has been described very addictive by Om Malik from Gigaom. This social browsing tool has hit more than one million users in 2007. I think this is particularly since StumbleUpon has reached out the mainstream and not Firefox only. This has created a virtuous circle: more sites in the database means more utility for the users - that leads to more signups and longer session times. Perhaps this indicates that the information being displayed appeals to quite an extent to the visitors.
What to Expect?
With so many gigantic companies hitting the Internet on a daily business, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate one's small and average company from others. One needs to constantly strive to get their brand noticed. Stumble Upon has not only made it easier for small companies to underscore their brand.
Here is a discussion on how a company called Seomoz.org started at StumbleUpon with an article and got over 13,000 visitors to the article in just 5 days. As said by Flux a Web developer from Seomoz
“I know we've said it before, but we're continually amazed at Stumbleupon's ability to drive traffic. If you have good, linkable content, it will send you a few visitors. But if you create truly great content, it will strike a cord with a lot of people and send you lots of traffic. How much? Well, here is a chart of the top 10 referrers to the Mythbusters page since last Friday. 13,000+ visitors from Stumbleupon. Word. That's more than every other referrer except Gorillamask (next 2 bars). It's 11,000 more than Netscape (6th bar). Goes to show you how much power is placed in good content”.
Ebay enters the online search war by buying Stumble Upon
 Ebay paid $75 million for StumbleUpon. This has added Stumble Upon to other Ebay offerings like PayPal and Skype. From 2006 to 2007, StumbleUpon showed 150% YoY growth. I think this has been done to help StumbleUpon to further grow to its full potential. Ebay and StumbleUpon do fit together as they hold the same approach of connecting people. The best thing is there are not many changes to the website, they run StumbleUpon separately within eBay Inc., and are still focused on developing features based on feedbacks.
Is StumbleUpon the future of Web?
Certainly, Google is getting monotonous as one has to wade through hundreds of sites from various companies just to find the relevant ones. StumbleUpon works best as a brand and a link blinking tool. It’s ability for exposure across a wide demographic has helped companies build an online blog’s reader base.
StumbleUpon has stumbled upon the secret to the future of web surfing! Lets just hope they don’t start considering the results in favour of commercial gain over the wealth of content on the net.
Have fun stumbling!
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