subject: Hot StumbleUpon Hits 1 Billion Stumbles Per Month [print this page] Hot StumbleUpon Hits 1 Billion Stumbles Per Month
Hot StumbleUpon Hits 1 Billion Stumbles Per Month
StumbleUpon is hot. The discovery and recommendation engine that makes web browsing a lot like channel surfing just announced it's now handling 1 billion stumbles per month.
On top of that impressive number,StumbleUpon just closed a second round of funding in March, wrapping up $17 million of series B financing.
That 1 million stumbles-per-month statistic represents explosive growth, especially when you consider that since just a month ago, that number has grown by 200 million, judging from the fact that StumbleUpon publicized 800 million stumbles just last month, according toBusiness Insider.
Why is StumbleUpon growing so fast? In my opinion, because it's fun. Moments of serendipity run rampant as you click the Stumble button to go to the next selected site, and every site you see is picked because of the detailed preferences you indicate in your profile. It gets even smarter about your preferences as you vote for sites by clicking either a thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon (Dell inspiron 1720 Battery life). And, because I've been using the service for the past six years, it's gotten to know my preferences quite well, and its ability to predict what sites I'll like has become positively uncanny.
In addition, it's hard to tell you're being advertised to, because StumbleUpon uses your same preferences to determine which paid sites to show you. I think any business model that can figure out how to advertise to people without them being aware of it has a great chance of survival.
User experiences with StumbleUpon:
Stan Dubin: I was a very active "Stumbler" back in 2009, but I've not done much with it since. I also felt the service itself was being displaced by Facebook, Twitter...the usual suspects. But reading here that they just hit a billion stumbles has me rethinking StumbleUpon.
When I used it way back when, it was about 97% pleasure, 2% business and 1% when I couldn't sleep so I'm not really sure what was happening on those stumbles.
Steve Welton: I think it's almost the equivalent of the original "channel surf". The fact that we can socially share what interests us is even better. @StumbleUpon has big things planned we hear. THUMBS UP!
Nikos Chatzigeorgiadis: StumbleUpon is quite awesome. It is logical that it has so many users, it took them all from Digg! Digg used to be this fun also sometime, but now SU is the best and thats for sure! If you also have a site and you manage to make a good "discovery" then your site skyrockets!
