StumbleUpon is a fun social networking tool that allows users to surf websites that match their personalized areas of interests. Once a user establishes a profile, they can download a toolbar for their web browser (Internet Explorer and Firefox are both supported). When the user wants to surf, they can click Stumble, and be wisked away to a website at random. In the background, StumbleUpon is matching the user’s areas of interest web sites that other users have submitted that match those topics. Users can also enter a keyword into the StumbleUpon toolbar and search for submitted sites that match that word.
This is very similar to social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and digg except it has the element of surfing built in. Rather than the user looking for specific content from like minded submitters, the toolbar does that step for them. It’s more passive and has a certain element of surprise built in.
Why should website owners care about this? Getting your site submitted to StumbleUpon can dramatically increase web traffic to your site. The spike may only last a week or so, but depending on your site goals, this can be significant. Users can also submit individual pages as well as the whole site. Therefore, if you’re producing regular content – say a blog – each post has the opportunity to be submitted and becoming viral.
