StumbleUpon.com Is Pretty Cool

I'm not actually all that into the social bookmarking thing--the tiny little Luddite/pencil person in me resists techy overhead.

[By "pencil person," I mean I like to choose the least complicated way of doing something, even if it might not be as slick or cool. During the space race, as the story goes, the US spent millions developing a pen that would write in space. It's very cool; I got one as a gift when I was working at Great Plains Software. However, it cost millions and it took a long time. What did the Soviet Union do? Yep--they just used pencils.]

However, I've been getting a ton of views lately directly from the Stumbleupon.com site so I decided it bore some more investigating.  (Thanks y'all, by the way. ;>  ) I had gone before but didn't see an easy way to go to content and just skipped it.

Here's the Stumbleupon main page  statement.

"StumbleUpon uses / ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality. When you stumble, you will only see pages which friends and like–minded stumblers have liked."

So I bumbled around, figured out how to do it (not quickly). It's a little different, you have to actually install a browser plugin (anything from Mozilla, aka Netscape and Firefox). You also have to create an ID but you just have to (I believe) click the link to create an ID and it creates one for you, bang.

To install the toolbar, don't download the file and try to install it; just click on the link at this URL.
https://addons.mozilla.org/mozilla/138/

The toolbar looks like this in your browser once it's installed. Click the picture to see a larger version.

You can search in the search field, or you can just click the far-left  "Stumble!" button to be sent to any site you like. Click the button and you'll get a window where you can choose categories. After that clicking Stumble will just take you from one very interesting and/or useful site to another.

I chose Science/Tech as the category and was taken to the OpenOffice.org site, a few others, and then to GnuCash. It says "Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses."



I hadn't seen, or remembered seeing, such a practical open source product like this, so I thought it was worth noting here.

Anyway, back to Stumbleupon. However you get to a site, you can click the Reviews of This Page icon and see what other Stumblers thought of it.



And of course you can click the Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down site to vote on it.

I haven't used all the icons on the toolbar, but I was impressed with what StumbleUpon showed me. If you're into this kind of thing, give it a try; if you're not, then try it anyway the next time you're on hold, or between hands playing online poker.  It's not the easiest interface to find your way around in (their web site), but the results are useful.

Comments

[Julien Marchand]

I you liked StumbleUpon, you might want to take a look at Outfoxed (http://getoutfoxed.com/). It's made as a Firefox extension and allows you to put thumb up/down on the pages you visit.

What is different about this is that the feedback you get in your browser depens on the feedback of people you've added in your safe-list. You can also determine how different levels of people you are looking into. Quite cool! And the theory behind it (network theory) is miles ahead of most things that are done currently.

[er]

Strange you haven't heard of GnuCash. Anyway, just wanted to mention that it is a very good application. I've been using it for many years.

[Phil]

I'm a big fan of your blog, but just have to make a comment about your statement concerning the "pen in space". Unfortunately this is an urban legend that is not true -- the US used pencils and didn't spend a dime on pen development -- this was a private development by a pen company. Check snopes.com for more info.

Keep up the good work with OpenOffice!

[Solveig]

D'oh! OK, well, I'll continue to use the analogy with the preface "you know that urban legend about the US and space pens?" ;>

Thanks for clearing that up,

Solveig

[Phil]

That analogy works great! FYI - Your tips and tricks have saved me lots of time and energy and I recommend your site to friends and colleagues on a regular basis.

Cheers
Phil

[Solveig]

Thanks, Phil! I'm glad the blog helps and I appreciate the recommendations.

[kt]

Hey, I was reading through your blog and noticed that you too are a fan of Stumble Upon! Something else you might want to try is a tool being put out by Dumbfind.com call the ranDUMBizer. It is similar to Stumble Upon (and was inspired by it), except it helps you find site similar to one another.
Try using them in tandem, when you see a site you like in StumbleUpon, click the ranDUMBizer bookmarklet and it will find something else that is
related. The ranDUMBizer helps you find things you are looking for, but don't know how to search for. Very beta, but often very very interesting.

http://www.dumbfind.com/randumbizer/