One of my favorite ways to discover new sites is by using StumbleUpon. I’ve been a fan for a while now, and just recently they redesigned their homepage. It looks like they’ve pulled bits and pieces of ideas from other big social networking/bookmarking services like Del.icio.us or Digg — yet they still made it their own.
Besides the new design, and new colors, one of the biggest changes is the addition of “recently popular websites” (much like Del.icio.us). It displays websites that were recently rated by StumbleUpon users, and the format of it reminds me of Digg with a small explanation of what it’s about, when it was reviewed, how many reviews it received, and what topic it fits under.
And because it’s “social”, they also display “Recent Stumblers.” Within that section, you can click “show me more” to see who’s online and view the top stumblers along with their profiles.
Now when you visit the site, you get a good idea of what they’re all about from just looking at it. I think the new look and design fits them well and shows that they have a focus on social networking/bookmarking. It has always been, and still remains one of the friendliest social sites that I’ve come across where you can find great sites around the web.
Source: Mashable
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Tags: Web Sites, Social Networks, Stumbleupon
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I agree. I’ve always been a fan of StumbleUpon.
I find the other social sites like Digg and Reddit cold and unfriendly, with many users just jumping on the latest hot topic or keen to see how many diggs a particular post can get, there doesn’t seem to be much social element to those sites. I find it really difficult to connect with users on those sites. I’ve seen a lot of quality content on those sites get buried.
I find StumbleUpon so much more friendly (as you mention in your post), with a lot of really good quality content. I’ve built up a good user base of friends and I like the ‘network’ page which shows who has visited my pages, it allows me to easily connect with fellow stumblers who share similar interests. I’ve found a lot of good sites that way.
You’re definitely right Dean…StumbleUpon’s community is a lot easier to connect with than some of the other social network sites who pretty much start wars in the comments which hardly make the conversations worth reading.
What I would like to see from StumbleUpon now is an easy way for people to use the service no matter which browser they are using. I would think that they could come up with a Bookmarklet or something along those lines so that people can shuffle through some sites when they are looking to kill some time.