This step-by-step guide covers some of the basics of Stumbleupon:

* Stumbling on sites and pages
* Rating the sites and pages that you Stumble!
* Reviewing your Stumbles
* Finding and Adding Friends
* Where to find more Help
Stumble!

Click the Stumble! icon on your toolbar. Stumbleupon will send you sites and pages based on the Topics that you choose. Stumble! as much as you want. Stumbleupon has millions of sites in its databases, all submitted and recommended by other Stumblers. There is a drop-down menu (beside the icon) that allows you to Stumble! in many different ways (more on this in the FAQ).


Exercise your thumbs!

As you Stumble! you, click the thumbs to tell the system what you like (or dislike). = I like this! (send me more like this, please!) = I don't like this! (don't send me any more pages like this, thank you!) Made a mistake? No problem! Simply click the same thumb again to un-thumb the page, or click the opposite thumb to change your rating.

Have your say!

When you Stumble! a page or site, first thumb it, then click on to see reviews & comments made by other Stumblers, and to add one of your own. On the Reviews page, click on: Add your own review and tag the page for future reference (more about tagging in the Help resources). Type your comment into the Review box, then press: Try it! (You will learn how to delete comments in the next step).

You have mail!

Chances are that you have already discovered the mail icon: It changes to alert you when you have a personal message (PM) from another Stumbler: You have to Stumble! a bit, choose a nickname and be displaying a photo (or avatar) before you can message other stumblers. There are ways to block messages from Stumblers, if you choose not to be contacted.

Look at Your Pages

Click the icon to see Your Pages - this is where your comments and reviews are displayed for you, and for other stumblers to read. From these pages, you can edit (or delete) your reviews, and Add Comments. When you have more than 10 reviews the oldest is moved off the front page - but you can still use the PREV and NEXT buttons to see ALL of your reviews! There's another drop-down menu here: Stumble! a bit and get some reviews & comments on your pages before exploring this facility (or see how it works when you visit other Stumblers' pages).

Choose some Friends!

On Stumbleupon, the term Friends means something very specific: Friends are other stumblers that you select because you like their pages. The system uses your choice of Friends to help select the sites and pages that you see when you Stumble! Click the icon on the toolbar: You won't have any friends when you first start Stumbling, but the system will suggest some for you. This list will change as you Stumble!, rate sites, change your topics, and so on. Visit some of these suggested friends, look at their reviews and comments and then, if you like their sites, click this button (you'll find it at the top of their pages):


This adds the Stumbler to your list of friends. Don't worry about making a mistake, the button changes to:


You can change your list of friends as often as you wish, but there is a limit to how many you can have.

Explore your Network

Another good way of finding Friends is to look regularly at your Network page. Initially, you will just see a view of Stumblers that have recently visited your pages, but as you Stumble! and add friends, you will see more information here.

Get to know the Toolbar

This guide has shown you the key functions of the toolbar, but there is more to discover. Lots more! Part of the fun of SU is in finding out some of the secrets for yourself, or to meet your fellow Stumblers and ask them How do you do that?! Take a look, too, at this icon on the toolbar: It reveals a drop-down menu

Answered by Gyan Singh , an ibibo Master, at 7:32 AM on October 07, 2008

StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 6,120,418 other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like () automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.

Answered by Sonu , an ibibo Master, at 2:35 PM on October 06, 2008

•Personalize your page. Upload an avatar, tell people who you are (fill out the “General” section), and share with the community what you like (the “Interests” section). If people are browsing the user community, they’ll get a truer sense of who you are.
•Join the communities relating to your interests and your business. To make sure that you are served pages that truly interest you, you’ll want to join targeted communities so that the traffic is desirable. You’ll also be able to contribute similar pages to the StumbleUpon engine so that they are added. If your page relates to these groups, they will be served to the group members. You can join up to 63 groups in the following main categories, which should cover just about everything:

•Befriend people who have similar interests. Adding friends whose pages interest you means that they will likely appreciate the pages that you’re submitting as well. It grows into a mutual relationship. People who like the pages you submit will befriend you and you will be serving them content based on the relationship. With the StumbleUpon network, you can have up to 200 friends.
•Stumble often. Just submitting and stumbling upon a single page doesn’t bode well for your reputation, and keen users will take notice of this. Stumble frequently. If people like the pages you’ve stumbled upon or submitted, you’ll likely also be rated highly in the community.
•Label and tag your submitted pages appropriately. When you tag your new submissions, be relevant. Pertinent tags will bring you the most targeted traffic from the users who specifically have expressed an interest in the topic you are serving content for. If you cover all the keywords (and tags) that you could possibly think of that don’t relate to your site, your popularity (if any) will be short lived when the thumbs-down button is pressed. Bear in mind that once the page is submitted, tags can be added and removed by the community members (which is a definite indication that they’re visiting the site!)
Why should you look at into directing StumbleUpon traffic to your site? Beyond the obvious benefits of extremely targeted traffic, the traffic doesn’t come all at once compared to a site like Digg. There’s the inherent benefit of having that “15 minutes of fame” on Digg until it crashes your server. StumbleUpon traffic is generally much more gradual. In one particular example, Neil Patel explains that StumbleUpon drove 17,209 visitors to his site in 25 days. Traffic coming directly from Digg is much less memorable, and most Digg users don’t venture farther than the front page.

An alternative is to consider sponsoring your site on StumbleUpon. Compared to the most obvious rival, Google Adwords, StumbleUpon traffic is sought and is the only page being served to the user at the time. It’s also incredibly cheap at $0.05 per visitor (with a maximum of 2,000 visitors per day). The results have been pretty amazing and provides “qualified traffic instantly” compared to Adwords, as indicated by a recent user’s experience. This may not always be the case, however.

So if you’re not interested in advertising, go social. The StumbleUpon community is a great way to find some pretty neat pages that you’d have never previously heard of.

Answered by Hem@nt .... , an ibibo Master, at 1:15 PM on October 06, 2008

StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click Stumble!, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 6,113,692 other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like () automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.

StumbleUpon uses / ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality. When you stumble, you will only see pages which friends and like-minded stumblers () have recommended. This helps you discover great content you probably wouldn't find using a search engine.

Searching vs. Stumbling:

Using search engines to locate relevant content typically means hunting through pages of results. Rather than searching for quality web sites, StumbleUpon members are taken directly to web sites matching their personal interests and preferences.

People-Driven Technology:

Using a combination of human opinions and machine learning to immediately deliver relevant content, StumbleUpon presents only web sites which have been suggested by other like-minded Stumblers. Each time the 'Stumble' button is clicked, the user is presented with a high quality web site based on the collective opinions of other like-minded web surfers.
Easy to Use, Community-based surfing:

The StumbleUpon Toolbar is integrated with the user's browser to allow for one-click access to quality web sites. A simple 2-level rating system gives users the opportunity to pass on or give their opinion on any webpage with a single click. These ratings also connect people sharing unique combinations of interests. Stumblers share their favorite web sites and interact with other users to further improve their web surfing experience.
A Personalized Browsing Tool:

StumbleUpon offers nearly 500 topics which users may choose to indicate their interests and preferences so each Stumble produces only the most relevant content. StumbleUpon delivers increasingly relevant content as the Toolbar learns what the user has liked in the past and continues to present quality web sites in the future.
Combats Information Overload:

Information on the Internet changes rapidly. StumbleUpon is a dynamic approach to keep on top of this ever-evolving pool of knowledge. StumbleUpon filters through the vast amount of information on the web to direct Stumblers to high quality web sites which are relevant to their personal interests. An obscure but interesting site can be immediately shared with other like-minded users. Old or low-quality sites can be removed if their ratings become too low. The participation of community members helps maintain a database of the most up-to-date and highest quality sites possible.

For more visit :

http://www.stumbleupon.com/abo ut/

Answered by Ashish Yadav , an ibibo Wizard, at 8:20 AM on October 06, 2008

StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more. Using 'StumbleUpon' social bookmarking service is pretty easy. First you need to register and download 'toolbar' for your browser (Firefox or IE) from: http://www.stumbleupon.com/download .php. Now whenever you come across a quality site that catches your attention, just hit the 'I like this' or 'Thumbs up' icon on toolbar. That's it. Now your favorite will be stored in your StumbleUpon web page and ready to be shared. Alternatively, whenever you press 'Stumble!' in the toolbar, they deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of millions other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like automatically shares them with like-minded people – and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.

Now for the 2nd part of your question, services similar to StumbleUpon: digg.com, del.icio.us, streakr.com, spinsnap.com, ma.gnolia.com, technorati.com, propeller.com, reddit.com, mixx.com, fark.com, slashdot.org, furl.net, simpy.com, spurl.net - Hope this will help.

Answered by A.R. , an ibibo Master, at 7:08 AM on October 06, 2008

Hi Preeti

As you might be aware that StumbleUpon is a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. Through this you can popularise your blog posts among users of such services from around the World.

Other such service which you can use include:
1. http://del.icio.us
2. http://digg.com
3. http://reddit.com
4. http://pligg.com
5. http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com
6. www.mixx.com

Infact there are hundreds of such services now, but the above 6 are the most popular ones.

Thanks n regards

Suparn@

Answered by Suparna , an ibibo Master, at 1:43 AM on October 06, 2008