New StumbleUpon Enhancements

StumbleUpon, a service that eBay bought in 2007 for approximately $75 million, and was rumored to be put up for sale in late September (if traffic levels and profit from the site were dropping).

The main purpose behind the site/service is to help web users discover the best websites on the web.  It is similar to other sites, although it focuses more on being able to directly review, rather than comment on content that others have created, not specifically news items or content that only lasts a short period, then leaves – content on StumbleUpon tends to be of higher quality than other sites.

Main Changes

Previously, visitors had to join the site or download the toolbar (Firefox, Internet Explorer, and SeaMonkey) in order to use the service to its full extent.  Now, more features, such as being able to view the top stories from the main page, any subcategories, and people you may share similar likes with.

The new homepage is, in my opinion, much more attractive and helps explain what the site is about better than the previous design.  In addition, it places more focus on the stories that members have recommended and the people who make up the community.

At this point, it appears that the full conversion (or partial) may not be entirely complete, as there are still broken links and pages that revert back to the original design upon login; in addition, some pages break out of the new browser toolbar, making it necessary to revert back the installed version.

Other Changes

Some of the problems that I have encountered, with some stated above, include the fact that you can’t “negatively” rate an item, meaning that unless a page is pulled from the random generator, that it will likely continue to become more popular.  The new browser toolbar only allows you to “Stumble”, “Like”, and rate an item, or add it to your favorites.

If you go to rate an item using the star rating system, you aren’t given the choice of how many stars – when you want to rate something one star, you are brought to the review page, where the only option is to say “Yes, I like it.”

Only 1/10 links that would normally link to a toolbar/page view worked, with the others returning 404 errors, signifying that any campaigns people are currently working on may be put on hold, or that traffic isn’t flowing through the system as it should (unless it is a localized problem).

- All-new profile pages.

- Improved navigation helps you move quickly across the site.

- All-new review page that makes it easier to find related content and members.

- Rate and review sites using the toolbar or website.

Two new ‘premier’ partners, The Huffington Post and How Stuff Works will be working with StumbleUpon to attract new visitors to their popular/unfound articles using a similar approach as the entire site on large collections of websites.

Traffic Chart for StumbleUpon

Conclusion

While I realize that this is a beta release of some things to come, it appears as though it was released just a few days too early as major functionality, such as linking is broken.  Currently, you can’t save the sites that interest you with the new toolbar, and during the “phasing out” process, only a few pages will be displayed using the JavaScript toolbar.

I also believe that an additional reason why this browser-independent toolbar will make waves of change is due to the fact that you won’t be hindered by the install of yet another plugin/extension into your browser, making it easier to switch between different browsers.  Plus, with more people connecting to the Internet wirelessly and through mobile devices, the new toolbar only requires JavaScript or Flash to have full functionality.

The one change that many people hope will come out of future releases of the site/toolbar is that it will improve the connectivity between the service, sites, and members, as well as encouraging people to promote the content that they like – driving traffic to website owners’ blogs/sites.

New StumbleUpon Toolbar

You can read the announcement post from the Official StumbleUpon Blog here.