Stumble Upon

I was using Meebo the other day to talk to my kids. The only way to get through to my daughters is through IM and Meebo is a totally online solution which works with just about all of the IM clients (MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, ...). I used to use Trillian but that requires software running on the computer itself which I like to avoid.


All of this to say that within Meebo they had a link to an article about the 25 Startups to Watch. Obviously the article was linked from Meebo because Meebo was one of those 25: number 4 to be precise. But I also checked out the others. Number one was a site called Stumble Upon which I have to admit looked interesting. I checked out the web site, signed up for my free account, installed their toolbar (talk about confidence! I never do that!!) and started playing around. Within about 10 minutes I was hooked. I did my part by going to all of my favourite sites which I visit regularly and giving my "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" where appropriate. This was fun and a bit ego-boosting. The Roman emperor gives his opinion which will change the world {vbg}.

But this actually became quite interesting, and actually useful, when I started clicking on the Stumble! button on the toolbar. I would choose one of my favourite topics and then it would stumble upon a site which fit that topic or tag. I wound up finding quite a few very interesting sites which I probably would not have found otherwise as well as hopefully steering others away from some I found and didn't like.

I find the concept quite interesting and because they have made it so easy to use I think it can work for the masses.

This does not replace search engines but it certainly compliments them in a way I had not anticipated.

Highly recommended!