Yikes. I just discovered StumbleUpon. Warning: it’s way addictive! I check my traffic stats regularly and have been noticing a growing number of visitors from the site, so got curious. StumbleUpon users rate sites by way of a simple thumbs up, thumbs down selection, and you can surf sites according to your selected interests; the results are organized somewhat by ratings by others. There are also special interest forums and blog functionality (like I need to start another blog). Anyway, after I selected my interests, I clicked on the StumbleUpon icon to see what would happen.
Here’s what came up. It took me a few moments to realize that this was a promotional site for a novel by Marisha Pessl. What a wonderfully entertaining and unique way to advertise one’s book! My only quibble: the site should make it easier for a user to buy the book (clicking on “BUY THE BOOK” doesn’t do anything until you also move your mouse to the illustration afterward) and also should give the user an easier way to find out basic info about the book if they didn’t want to search for it.
I’m going back to work now, but will explore StumbleUpon in more detail later. I’m curious about what writing-related sites it comes up with…
