Do you stumble upon?

Image by swruler9284 via FlickrIf you have been surfing the web long enough, then you probably already know about StumbleUpon and perhaps actively use it. But in case you don’t know about StumbleUpon then in this post I am going to tell you all about it. By the end of this post you will be able to use StumbleUpon and take full advantage of what it offers.

What is StumpleUpon?

In fewest possible words, StumbleUpon is a service that lets you stumble upon websites that you like.

How does it work?

StumbleUpon works by a toolbar that sits on top of your browser. You stumble upon a new website by clicking on the stumble button on the toolbar. If you like the website you click on the thumbs up button. If you didn’t like the website you click on the thumbs down button. You click the stumble button to browse the next website. That’s pretty much it. It’s like channel surfing, only for websites.

The real power of StumbleUpon lies in these three buttons on the toolbar. As you use StumbleUpon, and thumbs up or thumbs down websites served to you, it learns what kind of websites you like and serve you similar websites subsequently. Over a long period of time StumbleUpon will serve you websites exactly according to your liking.

But how does a web page enter StumbleUpon database? It is stumbled by users. StumbleUpon is driven by the power of sharing. When a user comes across an interesting blog post, a news article, a picture, a video, or anything on the internet, they hit the thumbs up button on their StumbleUpon toolbar. This means they liked the web page and want to share it with other stumblers. Once the web page gets registered in SU database, it is served to other users as they click the stumble button on the toolbar.

Social Networking

But that’s not where it ends. StumbleUpon is a social networking tool as well. Every stumble upon user has a profile which can be viewed by other users and added as friends. Chances are that people you know might already be using StumbleUpon. You can add them as friends and become their fan (how flattering!). Now pages they stumble upon and like will be served to you, and vice versa.

You can also join groups within the SU community (such as Firefox, photography, fishing, and so on) to stumble pages belonging to that category.

By combing all the above features and more, the experience of surfing the web becomes so much more fun and exciting because you can browse into interesting web sites everyday without much effort.

Why should I join?

Keeping the above in mind, here is why you should join SU right now,

1. You will be able to browse websites you like with minimum effort.
2. You will be able to network with your friends and become familiar with what they are browsing and share interesting websites with each other.
3. You will become part of one of the largest communities in the world. 5.5 million users have collectively stumbled 5 billion websites so far.

What to do next?

I am sure you are anxious to join SU by now. Here are the simple steps.

1. Go to SU website and create your account.
2. Create your profile and select your interests.
3. Install SU toolbar.
4. Add friends and fans by clicking on the friends button on the toolbar
5. Start stumbling.

Don’t forget to add me as your friend. Here is my profile.