Why You and Your Grandmother Should be Stumbling!
Posted on April 21, 2008
Since becoming a blogger and web site owner, I have discovered "Social Networking". At first I was not really clear how it worked or even what it was, but as I have been growing my blog, I now have discovered how powerful and amazing it really is. My favorite social networking sites are Stumble Upon and Digg, but I have been really focusing and learning about Stumble Upon lately. I get a lot of traffic here at the "Juice" when others stumble my articles and can really tell when word gets out about a great one. I have had plenty of help from my Stumble Upon friends and have also helped others get the word out on amazing post by Stumbling them.
Social Networking is basically the same as it is off line as it is online. Off line you tell your friends, family , and co-workers about great ideas, stories, articles, shows, pictures, and news. Online social networking is the same thing, but through the web. If you want to share a video, most people are using You Tube, if you want to share a picture, many people use Flickr, for news, stories, and just about every thing else people are using Stumble Upon and Digg. There are many out there but these are the biggest and most successful so far. Online social networking is like word of mouth on steroids. When something worth talking about is found, it spreads like wild fire through the web with social networking. My favorite thing about social networking though is that it filters the web. It gets you what you want, quickly, with out having to go look for it. Imagine if you had 10 to 20 "like minded" friends all on the look out for amazing information, news, and articles. If everyone just Stumbled one item every couple days, you would have a constant and steady stream of great, and more importantly relevant and interesting, content to absorb.
How does Stumble Upon work?
Here is my everyday language opinion of how Stumble Upon works.
Stumble Upon uses it’s more than 4.5 million users to rate, divided, and categorize the World Wide Web. They use people, what a novel concept now days! They use you and me to discover and spread the word about great content on the web. It works in two basic, yet very different ways.
The first way is to deliver content from what they call "like minded" people. For me this is not the most efficient way because they are telling you who is like minded for you based on your selection of topics. You use their great tool bar (as seen above) to "Stumble" on content. You simple click the "Stumble" icon and it will take you to their recommended content based on "like minded" users. There is a little more too it, but that is the basics for way number one. I do not recommend this unless you really have a lot of time and love to surf the web. Okay, now to the really good stuff, how you should use Stumble Upon to discover great content.
The second way is to find a few friends, that you select are "like minded" and use the tool bar. When ever you discover something that you like on the web, use the tool bar. When ever you want to share something, use the tool bar. By giving great content a "thumbs up" you create your own Blog of content for others to see and discover. Your friends do the same and before you know it you don’t have to use search engines to find what you are looking for, your friends already have and have tagged it too. This has been by far the best way for me to discover and find great content
on the web. When you go to your Stumble homepage you will be greeted with "What’s New", which is all content that your friends have given a thumbs up! It is that simple, your friends say, "Hey, check this great content out" and there it is at your finger tips. I can not say enough how much great content I find this way. I have a lot of great friends that read the same 
stuff I do and help me discover even more. Also from you Stumble homepage you can go to "Your Favorites", which is all the content that you have given a thumbs up. It is almost like book marking in a sense, but you get a picture and short excerpt from the "book mark". This is also the view that you get when you go to a friends Stumble homepage. You are greeted with all your friend’s content that has been given a thumbs up. This is a great way to find content from your favorite and most active friends. I visit many of my friends homepages every day just to make sure I don’t miss something fantastic.
For more details take a look at their explanation and their technology page.
What’s so great about Stumble Upon?
1. The greatest thing about Stumble Upon is the amazing filtration that you get on the vast and rapidly growing content on the web. For me Stumble Upon has become as important as using RSS. RSS delivers you the content that you subscribe to and want, Stumble Upon refers you to the content that you would not find by normal means. Stumble Upon lets you find more content that is worth your subscription.
2. You don’t have to do all the work. The system works best when everyone uses the tool bar and simply gives amazing content a Thumbs Up. Between you and your friends you will have more great content then you can ever need or want.
3. Stumble Upon puts content in front of users that they actually care about. By using people, you are not just at the mercy of mainstream media and all the negativity they promote. You and your friends decide what is important and news worthy!
4. It is really simple. How hard is it to hit a little thumb icon at the top of your web browser?
5. You can filter out adult content.
6. The more you use it the better the community and system works!
7. Because your Grandmother is too old to be wasting her time having to search for great web content, give it to her. (Just kidding to all you great Grandmothers out there!)
Visit and become my friend!
As readers and fans of my blog I would like to personally invite everyone of you to start using Stumble Upon and promote great web content for your friends. It is very simple to use and you can download and install the Stumble Upon tool bar here. You can visit my homepage by clicking on the Stumble Image to the left. Don’t be afraid, just jump in and start stumbling! Before long you will be inviting all your friends to use it.
or 
Stumble It!
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One Response to “Why You and Your Grandmother Should be Stumbling!”
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Yes I have a lot of love for SU - have had quite a few articles do well on there and also it has helped me discover some great sites. Thanks for the article Brad! *stumbled*