One Year Later, Still Stumblicious!
Hands down, StumbleUpon is my favorite social network. I am more active with SU more than I am with LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace combined. Did I mention that I really like SU?
Happy Stumbleversary!
Last week, I hit my one year anniversary with SU, but I was too busy going through my notes following my press days at the Detroit Auto Show to mention it. The date isn’t really important, rather my experience with this nifty social media tool is.
Helping Friends Out
Admittedly, I got off to a very slow start with SU as I couldn’t figure out all of the ins and outs of stumbling. SEO mavens like Dosh Dosh have published handy “stumble guides” and a few active stumblers shared their tips to help me gain traction. After six months time I began to write about SU and publish that information to this blog. Eventually, all 200 of my mutual friends get stumbled and then I repeat the process.
This morning, I spent some time stumbling through my SU Friends’ pages, something I like to do from time to time. I figure that if we’re “friends” the least I can do is to visit your site and stumble your pages. I will usually leave a comment behind, whether on your blog or with SU — sometimes both, but rarely so.
No More Proxies
SU spam is on the rise and involves silly comments to users’ SU Inbox and requests to stumble certain types of pages. Recently, I made the decision (finally, I know) that I would no longer stumble proxy pages. I don’t stumble adult, hate and warez pages and I don’t automatically “thumbs up” any page just because someone sent it to me.
Stats Not Important
I’m not part of SU for stat generating, though it isn’t too hard to climb the SU ladder and get labeled as a stumble pro. From time to time I cull through my list of friends and remove inactive people while adding those folks who have friended (I hate that word) me and who are a good fit for what I do.
Yes, after one year of regular use, I can still say that SU remains very stumblicious!
Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, social media, Social Media, StumbleUpon
Social Media | Matthew C. Keegan, 25 Jan 08
By bridgeproxy, January 25, 2008 @ 11:28 am
hi there, nice post. Oh ya .. we help you to unblock every blocked site and surf anonymously from our proxy
By Mike - Twenty Steps, January 25, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
Happy Stumble Birthday, Matt! You are indeed Thor, God of Stumble Thunder
By Matt, January 25, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
Bridgeproxy: You have every right to have a proxy, but it isn’t something I’m interested in promoting. Besides with tens of thousands of them out there, what is the benefit?
Mike: Thor, eh? I can live with that name but I’m sure I won’t be able to live up to that reputation!
By Joanna Young, January 25, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
Matt, I like SU too – it’s such a simple way to say thanks, bookmark sites, meet other bloggers, learn from your readers…
Only downside is how tricky it is to get logged on and started. I know lots of people who gave up at that point and never get to the easy bit once you’re set up and ready to roll.
By the way, you might want to include the link to your profile in an update or future post – I see it’s on the site, but lazy feedreaders might follow you from the feed if they’re looking for fellow stumblers to link up with.
Best wishes
Joanna
By Maki, January 25, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
Congrats on the one year stumble anniversary! You are certainly one of the most active stumblers I know
By Matt, January 25, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
Joanna: Good points! Once you start stumbling, you get in the groove fairly quickly.
The reason I don’t publicize my link anymore than I do is because I don’t want the spammer to bother me. I figure that they are the lazy folks who will simply move on to easier pickings.
Maki: Thanks! Your Dosh Dosh tutorial is one of the best ones out there, just the kind of information everyone needs to stumble and do that with authority.
By Jagad Guru | Sayings, January 26, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
Nice post!
I am also SU fan! Sometimes I click this green button and click and click and then 1 hour passed in a blink of an eye!
If one can set up interesting categories then it sure can bring you nice websites you never knew about… People I sent the links to are wondering how did I stumble upon them. This is my secret
By Matt, January 26, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
Thanks, Jagad. I know exactly what you mean — you start stumbling — thinking you’ll do it for a few minutes, then before you know it a ton of time goes by.
Some SU secrets are best left unsaid. I’ve decided to go the quieter route as far as talking about stumbling. Instead, I just stumble.
By Gawk, January 26, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
Nice post Matt, and thanks for helping me out with SU during that year.
Funny how you mentioned not stumbling proxies, I had made that decision a week or two ago as I have no interest or use for them and they are at saturation point.
Hope you enjoyed the show in Detroit, were you wearing makeup in that video interview?
By Matt, January 26, 2008 @ 4:45 pm
Thanks, Gawk!
I’ve been culling through my list of stumble requests and have gotten picky, simply because a lot of sites don’t add value to the SU database.
Detroit was cool, but that was my pale self without the aid of makeup. Fortunately, the lighting was just good enough to show my face without getting too detailed!
By Shana Albert - TheNanny612, January 26, 2008 @ 6:58 pm
Happy Anniversary!! Wow, 20,000 pages in a year….. that is AMAZING!! To the next 20,000!!
By Matt, January 26, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
Thanks, Shana! I’ll get there, some day. BTW, you’ve been stumbled as has mostly everyone else who gave a site I could stumble.
By Mihaela Lica, January 28, 2008 @ 1:34 am
Oh, so true.. so true… But first, happy anniversary!
One year of SU, huh? And you still keep on thumbing? No muscle ache?
Skipping the joke, thank you for being my friend, Matt!
By Matt, January 28, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
Thanks, Mihaela! I appreciate your stumble exchanges: you provide very good, informative pages too.
No muscle ache for me — I don’t stumble for hours on end, a little here and a little there works for me.
By Free Articles, January 31, 2008 @ 2:50 am
Matt, I enjoyed this article — would you consider posting it on my site? I’m trying to get quality, unique stuff on there so I’ve started hunting it down myself
By Matt, January 31, 2008 @ 7:22 am
Free, the only problem with reposting on your site is that it would no longer be unique.
I have used article directories extensively in the past, but have not used them much recently. If I were to submit an article, it would be posted on one directory, but I wouldn’t want to share it with anyone else.
To this day, I am finding a lot of my work reposted to splogs after being submitted to an article directory.
Best wishes anyway, I see that you are South Africa’s very first article directory — congratulations!
By Jason Pearson, March 2, 2008 @ 9:49 pm
Sounds like a great site. I will have to check it out. Thanks for posting this. I will definitely come back.
By Fachia, April 30, 2008 @ 8:51 pm
I did use Stumble Upon than Digg. I don’t know why is it but the exact reason is that I like SU’s user environment.