NOWSOURCING

StumbleUpon, a popular social media site, is a fantastic way to “channel surf” through the web. The StumbleUpon folks were intelligent to set up the system the way that did. Ebay thought so too, having recently purchased them for $75 million.

So, what’s the secret feature, you ask? First off, StumbleUpon has a much more thorough Help page than most social networking sites, but as with any good help page, there will always be more to add.

If you have ever had someone review something that you Stumbled, you will see something like this:

(If you’re wondering about the context of this review, this stumbler was reviewing my article about Google Sky being released).

Note that the “Helpful?” link has been highlighted. That’s because I said that this user’s review was helpful. I’ve seen on the web that some people speculate that selecting “no” is the same as reporting a review that’s inappropriate. Even if that’s true, nothing is speaking to the “yes”.

I have seen a notable difference in the popularity of my stumbles that I selected helpful reviews vs. not selecting them. Has anyone else seen similar results? Perhaps there is also some added benefit from others rating your reviews, bringing you closer to Top Stumbler status? Look for a future post from me to go into further stats comparing the results.