StumbleUpon Can Make You Famous
There is famous and there is infamous, and StumbleUpon (SU) can make you both. In a recent event, Darren Rowse of Problogger got a first hand look at what SU did to make him infamous.
Darren has been a big supporter of SU, thus using it very heavily to rate sites across the net. In return for his dedicated support of others sites, a great number of his readership returns the support by stumbling his articles, creating a supportive community. Yesterday, he was notified that StumbleUpon had not just blocked, but banned him for abuse.
This misunderstanding hit the media networks in approximately an hour and a half the entire situation was resolved thanks to dedicated fans, but more importantly a customer friendly, transparent company willing to be open on the errors they make.
While many feel that SU was in the wrong, I find that measuring a business by how it admits and handles its errors is more important than assigning blame. SU did a fantastic and prompt job responding to Darren and Problogger was reestablished.
What is StumbleUpon?
StumbleUpon, similar to Digg, allows you to vote for sites, increasing the popularity based on user support. Once a site has been stumbled, a chain reaction through the social network is viral, and many sites see an increase in traffic.
A toolbar installs into the browser header once downloaded. This allows them to “stumble” a site, a basic “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.” If you “thumbs up” a site, you are allowed to provide a brief description of the site and your rating. If a site has already been stumbled then you’ve simply boosted the sites rating, which affects the frequency in the rotation of random sites that SU will display. StumbleUpon is heavily monitored for abuse to provide a level playing field for all sites involved.
I for one enjoy and fully support StumbleUpon, and encourage you to explore the application and while ranking sites is always enjoyable, clicking the “stumble” button can t
ake you to sites you may never have found otherwise.
Photo Credit, tris
