Thanks for the emails regarding last week’s column. I always appreciate hearing from you readers. So, thanks for reading Double Click!
This week I am going to talk about an interesting site that I put off using for several years. There was really nothing wrong with it but I just didn’t "get it". I was told by a friend how they used it to discover new things in areas of interest and enjoy winding down at the end of the day by stumbling upon different sites.
The site is, you guessed it, simply named Stumble Upon (stumbleupon.com). The way Stumble Upon works is you begin by creating a free account with an email address and password. They also allow you to "relate" it to your Facebook account so that you use the same sign-in for both. I don’t like doing that so I have a separate account.
You then proceed to manage your interests in Stumble Upon. They have some categories set up to guide you through the process. Once you are done you can start stumbling. My interests are currently set at things like Gadgets, Technology, Internet, Christianity, Programming, Movies, Photography and TV to name a few.
To stumble you start from your Stumble Upon homepage and click the large golden button labeled, "Stumble Your Interests". It also adds a toolbar to the top of the browser. Do not worry. It is only temporary while you are stumbling. If you wish to add a "full time" Stumble Upon toolbar you can, but the choice is yours. I don’t want extra toolbars so I don’t choose that option.
It then takes you to other sites dealing with one or more of your interests. The toolbar also allows you to "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" the site depending on how you like it. You may also share the site with Twitter, Facebook, email and others if you wish.
I do like to stumble upon sites using this on occasion. It is really great when you find a site that you are interested in; however, I have found that I have about a 50/50 chance of getting a site that actually interests me. If you don’t like it or don’t care you don’t have to rate it and can just click your, "Stumble!" button to continue on to the next suggestion.
You can also choose to share your interesting sites with your followers…yes, think Facebook or Twitter-like on that one. There are many other options on the site you may want to experiment with, try it out and let me know how you like stumbling through cyberspace.
