Wondering what happened to StumbleUpon?
Sixteen years after it started, StumbleUpon has called it quits. It ceased operations forever on June 30, 2018. But don’t worry, there are still some StumbleUpon alternatives that let you find interesting web pages with the click of a button.
One of the internet’s premier discovery engines, StumbleUpon randomly showed pages liked by others. You could endlessly click the Stumble button till you found something that piqued your interest.
StumbleUpon was one of the most interesting sites on the web.
Note – The original stumbleupon post is below this update
Social networks have made it easier to discover articles, videos, or other links that you find interesting. But if you want a little bit of that randomness back into your life, there are a few choice sites and apps for that too.
1. Mix (Web): StumbleUpon’s Official Alternative
In a Medium post, StumbleUpon co-founder Garrett Camp said they were encouraging current users to move to their new platform, Mix. Mix even lets you import all your current StumbleUpon favorites, interests, and tags.
Browse around and you’ll find that Mix is like an organized version of StumbleUpon. The web’s best links are curated in one place and presented in your dashboard, based upon your interests. Click a button and the link is added to your Collection, which you can read later on your mobile. The only thing missing is StumbleUpon’s feeling of randomness and serendipity.
Mix apparently has mobile apps for Android and iOS, but I couldn’t get either of them to work. That said, the site works perfectly on a mobile browser, so there’s hardly anything that an app is going to add to that.
2. Discuvver (Web): Find a Useful Website You Didn’t Know About
StumbleUpon and others like it have always been about interesting links. Utility was never the focus, it was more about passing some time in an entertaining way. Discuvver focuses on useful websites exclusively but adds StumbleUpon’s randomness to it.
Click the “Take me to a useful website” button on the homepage to open a new tab with a random website in it. You can click that button as many times as you want. Discuvver doesn’t seem to run out of suggestions, so go nuts and find some of the most useful websites you didn’t know about.
Just remember to keep the Discuvver site open in one tab because there isn’t a button on each new page you visit. You’ll always have to go back to the main site to get that button. This also means Discuvver is a better experience on desktops than mobiles.
3. Stumbl.TV (Web): StumbleUpon for YouTube Videos
Stumbl.TV is a neat way to check out some of those interesting videos that you normally wouldn’t come across on YouTube. Like StumbleUpon, it is completely random, but you can set a few parameters.
For example, you can set how short or long you want the video to be, with a maximum runtime of four minutes. Similarly, you can set how many times the video has already been viewed, so that you can even get some of the weirdest and least viewed YouTube clips. You can also filter by YouTube categories.
4. URL Roulette (Web): Give a Link, Get a Link
For a truly random experience, URL Roulette is the place to go. It’s one of the best time-wasting sites when you’re bored.
It’s a give-and-take experience. Here’s how it works. Go to URL Roulette and paste any interesting link you know of. The site will immediately take you to another such link submitted by someone else. By the time you finish with that, you’ll be ready for another. So again, paste an interesting link and get one more. It’s the same randomness of StumbleUpon, but this time, you feel a part of the community.
If you want a quick list of URLs, subscribe to the newsletter or check out the latest issue. There, you will find the week’s top 10 submitted URLs, so it’s an easy way to get 10 cool clicks without having to submit something for each one.
5. /r/InterestingAsF*** (Web): The True StumbleUpon Successor
The best successor for StumbleUpon comes from Reddit, with a name that has an unfortunate expletive in it. But don’t worry, the content in the IAF subreddit is heavily moderated, and posts with adult content are clearly marked as NSFW.
The community at IAF shares links of all kinds, whether it’s a video, an image or GIF, an article, or a whole website. Sort them by latest or top posts, go for the more controversial ones, or browse in any pattern you want. You won’t be disappointed with the collection here, as the moderators do a great job of regulating the quality of posts here.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a true randomizer here, but given how regularly IAF gets updates, you won’t need it. And as always, you can also use Reddit’s “Random” button to find interesting thing
StumbleUpon Marketing Strategy
The social media site StumbleUpon is a discovery engine that finds and recommends web pages to its users.
Users ‘like’ websites they are directed to, and those sites are shared with their followers. One potential ‘like’ could potentially gain your business quite a bit of online presence because once users set up an account and submit information about the types of sites they are interested in, they are referred to seemingly random websites fitting their interests.
However, most of the sites they are referred to are sites that were previously ‘liked’ by a friend. If your business fits into one of the StumbleUpon interest’s categories, you could see a steady, ongoing increase in visitors to your site. The key to StumbleUpon, as with any other social media site, is in active participation.
The more ‘likes’ you get the higher your website gets in StumbleUpon’s placement rankings. It may not seem that a pseudo-search engine has anything to do with social media marketing, or that it’s worth the investment of your time. However, consider the numbers and you will see that it is certainly worth a look:
1. StumbleUpon has 25 million registered users
2. StumbleUpon has 15 million estimated unique monthly visitors
3. StumbleUpon has 1 billion monthly page referrals
Obviously, the traffic on StumbleUpon isn’t as high as it is on other sites, but those figures are still impressive. By simply a click of a button you can add your businesses website to the StumbleUpon stream.
Additionally, through StumbleUpon’s Paid Discovery service, they lead people to your website.
Let’s take a look at some specific strategy tips for StumbeUpon marketing:
Create a complete profile. This sounds obvious, but the more complete and professional your profile looks the more you’re likely to be taken seriously by consumers.
Read their terms of use. StumbleUpon is diligent in how they manage their website offerings. Look into their Paid Discovery service. It is a guaranteed way to get your website to show up when users search for websites that fit their interest categories.
Be selective and strategic about what you submit as a ‘stumbler’. Submit industry-related articles and blogs written by others, as well as yourself, so you don’t appear to be spamming the site. This will also help show you are an authority in your industry. This term is repeatedly used because it is of key importance in establishing a quality online presence.
Check out other users who have interests related to your business, and select those you think may be of interest to your followers, or benefit to your business. These are sources of potentially rich content and excellent leads.
Add compelling descriptions and titles to each thing you share. Make yours standout from the rest so users will be enticed to click on it.
Create a StumbleUpon channel. Your personal content becomes a part of your followers feed. StumbleUpon, like every other social media site, isn’t going to be highly beneficial for every business. However, since it’s free and easy to set up, it’s worth considering. After all, you can’t go wrong with free advertising.
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