Wednesday, June 8, 2011

StumbleUpon - My thoughts, its purpose, and business uses.

StumbleUpon is more of a toolbar than a whole site. For example, should a user choose to not install the StumbleUpon toolbar, they will instead be taken to a page where there is a toolbar inside the window itself. You can "stumble" while in this view but if you see something somewhere else on the web you like you cannot "like it" if you do not have that toolbar. The site allows you to select topics you are interested from which the site will pull from to give you images, video, or whatever else the web has to offer that deals with those topics. you click "stumble" to move to a different item and can like or dislike an item. You can can also share what you stumble upon on Facebook or Twitter by clicking their respective buttons.

Being a new user to the site I found it very easy to use and setup my preferences for topics. I then actually used the site without the toolbar. After a few clicks I liked most of what I saw and can now say that I have the toolbar installed. The site had me stumbling and made me not want to stop. It has this sort of appeal of wondering what will come next that kept me hooked. It is easily one of the new time wasters of the web, in a good way. In fact, this site has had me procrastinating on this very blog while I stumble in the background.

The best use for a business is to create something, whether it be a video or image that is tagged as humor or dealing directly with their industry. If users check the box pertaining to their tag, they may get stumbled on. The challenge after being stumbled upon is being able to get people to like it. The business will still need a good marketing campaign but I have seen people recommend certain stumbles through Facebook and a good find on the web can spread like wildfire.

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