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How do you become a StumbleUpon power user? Ask a 16 year old.

Interview with aivzdog, a young StumbleUpon power user

For those of you that don’t already know her, Anna (Aivsdog) is a power user over at StumbleUpon with over 500 fans and 5,000 pages liked.

Hey Aivsdog, it’s a pleasure interviewing you. Thanks for making the time.

It is my pleasure to do this for you and to let everyone know how wonderful StumbleUpon is.

1. How did you start out at StumbleUpon?

I don’t really remember how I came across it but I do think a friend of mine mentioned it and I thought I would check it out.

2. Tell us about what keeps bringing you back to StumbleUpon.

I am always coming back because of all the new things people are thumbing up and discovering. Also all the wonderful people on the StumbleUpon. I made a lot of wonderful friends. Some of my friends on StumbleUpon are ferusvulpes, FATCATdagg, anahey, StormJosh, zspada15, SantaGauss, pkirsch, and you.

3. Surely, you’ve noticed a surge in users / user activity lately. How would you say that the SU community has changed?

It is such a wonderful friendly community to finding the best things across the web and I think that is what keeps people coming and joining. There are also new sites being added every second. Ways to meet people with the same interest and same website interests. It is colorful and creative. Just a great place to hang out.

4. You’ve really become a popular user with over 125 reviews and 500 fans. And at such a young age, no less. I find that folks that are Generation X and older sometimes have a hard time understanding the latest generation’s success on social news / social bookmarking sites. Maybe it’s just that I’m still relatively young yet, but I have no trouble seeing why. When I was a kid, the Internet barely existed (no www for sure), and my first computer didn’t even have a harddrive (Apple IIc). Today, people grow up with the Internet all around them and with all the tools available. Not that everyone young is tech savvy, but you almost need to go out of your way to at least have some aptitude. What are your thoughts?

It isn’t actually hard to understand. Remember that we young ones learn things quicker and easier and plus if you have a interest in it you will even learn it quicker also. Our young brains are still developing and don’t confuse things as much as when you get older. Also we have better memory. I am an Internet lover and just love doing anything with social networks and finding things that are fun, interesting, bizarre, and anything that catches my eye. I have always had a computer and internet in my life and just you learn more and more every single day you use it. StumbleUpon is actually made pretty easy to understand so anyone can use it no matter what your age might be. Don’t give up if you don’t understand it right away.

5. What other types of social media sites do you like?

I love social networks. Some other social networks that I enjoy are myspace, facebook, and livejournal. There are so many others and always new ones being created.

6. Social Media such as StumbleUpon has become the latest craze in the Internet Marketing industry. Do you see yourself going into this type of industry in the future?

I would love to do something with the Internet and social networking. But my main career idea is something with animals and photography. Like an animal photographer. I will probably do some kind of job on the Internet some time in my life. I probably will have some different small jobs. Maybe sell some things on the Internet.

7. Any tips for those that are just starting out in StumbleUpon now?

Take your time and explore and learn about StumbleUpon. It does take some time to learn how to do everything and get the hang of things. Go to different peoples pages and see what kind of things attract people to your pages. Some people with great things and helpful pages that i visit often are sehsxu, chris789, 7HL, geoff, starspirit, tutto, CherishMe, and lots of others. Keep your StumbleUpon page updated. Come by my page if you need help with anything and check out my pages that are always being updated.

8. How much time do you spend on StumbleUpon?

I get on and off the internet during the day and so I am on it between 2-5 hours is a good estimate of time I spend on StumbleUpon. Usually whenever I am on I am on StumbleUpon and never far from it.

19 Comments

  1. Brennan Kingsland

    Howdy, NowSourcing,

    What is a POWERUSER? Someone who spends lots of time on StumbleUpon? (I qualify!) or someone who knows special techniques for using StumbleUpon? (I TOTALLY don’t qualify!)

    Just wondering!
    Brennan

  2. brian

    @Brennan: the term “power user” really comes from the network administration world, usually referring to a user that’s granted more privileges than a standard user, but less than an administrator. The context in which I’m putting it here suggests that a StumbleUpon power user is one that is very active in the SU community, is well liked, stumbles and reviews a lot, etc. It means that they are influential in the community and others are truly interested in the sites that they come across.

    As far as special techniques go, StumbleUpon is pretty straightforward. Making your mark in StumbleUpon takes time and effort. Look at aivsdog – she uses SU a good 2-5 hours a day! How many of you can say that?

  3. Caroline Middlebrook

    2-5 hours per day! OMG that’s a huge amount of time. For somebody trying to build a living from the Internet there is no way I would want to devote that much time to any single activity, especially a social media site.

    It’s interesting to hear from people who are active on these sites but with StumbleUpon in particular, I think it is still debatable whether or not somebody with an active profile actually has more ‘influence’ when it comes to driving traffic to the pages they give a thumbs up to.

  4. brian

    @Caroline: yes, I was thinking that was a considerable amount of time per day as well.

    Regarding top stumblers and influence, I do believe that a stumbler that has a significantly active will bring more traffic than others. I’ve read people report on this and would link to them all here, but I don’t have a 2-5 hour budget for that sort of thing today. 🙂

  5. Dan

    She’s like the socialite version of a WoW addict. Leeeeeroy Jenkins.

  6. aivzdog

    Hey, I am glad everyone is enjoying the wonderful interview i did.
    I am very happy to do anything to promote and show how wonderful stumbleupon is.
    When I say 2-5 hours a day. That doesn’t mean all at once. I get off and on the computer during the day and that is just an estimate time i spend if i put it together.

  7. brian

    @dan: dammit leroy. 🙂
    (for anyone that has no idea what Dan’s talking about, see here.

    @aivzdog: thanks for checking in and clarifying that point. I think people were starting to get concerned that you had no other life beyond SU 🙂

  8. Scott Hendison

    My kid is 10, and he keeps wanting to go outside and play… I’ll have to have another talk with him 😉

  9. Dan

    I thought about it a bit- I mean who doesn’t spend 2-5 hours a day with their email client open and/or emailing people? So I guess thats not too excessive… Least I got chicken.

  10. brian

    @dan: agreed. Everyone keeps their email open at least. You’ll see above that aivszdog came back to comment on this point, and she indeed meant off and on, not just in one sitting. And you stole my cloudsong.

  11. Linda

    I would think the answer to the question “How do you become a Stumbleupon power user?” is in the question itself. Use SU a lot and thumb up quality sites. I believe there are better examples of ‘power users’ such as https://starspirit.stumbleupon.com/ Not only is she a power user, she is on the Top Stumblers list and she is far more influential as far as how often I see stumbles from her. I just don’t think featuring aivszdog as a power user is a great example when there are people who have thousands of fans and have almost reached there limit of thumbed up sites. I would have liked to have seen an interview with a real power user (meaning influential, many fans, tons of thumbed sites and a lengthy time at the top) not just someone who stumbles a lot.

  12. brian

    @scott: very funny. I can just picture you saying “well ok, let’s compromise. I’ll let you go out and play, but just be sure to Twitter everything that’s going on” 🙂

  13. brian

    @linda: you raise some very good points. I’d like to make a distinction between a power user and a top stumbler. Only a select few people are at the very top of SU (note: we did mention starspirit and tutto, both top stumblers, in the interview).

    And yes, a key underlying point on the interview, as you said, was “How do you become a Stumbleupon power user,” but additionally that folks that use social media sites have a lot that they can learn from the perspective of youth.

    Still, I’ll take your comments to heart and perhaps so a similar interview with a higher ranked SU addict 🙂

  14. PK Otoole

    Brian,

    This was a nice look at a power user and all the more interesting because of her young age. I completely disagree with Linda – aivszdog was a perfect example and subject. Nobody really cares to read about a “Top Stumbler” because we they are so overexposed we already know more about them then we care to.

  15. brian

    @pk otoole: Yes, power user + behavior of a teenager made this seem to be a good overall interview. And yes, I had some issues with what Linda was saying that I’ve expressed in the comments to her above. Aivszdog is actually a top stumbler now, but agree that the overexposure can make them boring quickly.

  16. roga

    2-5 hours isnt bad.. some people out there have no lifes at all and spend all there time on the PC (like me).

    life is what you make of it… so i made mine a living hell and many others done the same thing.

  17. Jake

    I already have 5,000 pages liked.. maybe I should start using the social networking features more so I can be a power user at 14.

    Seriously, how did you get this definition?

  18. Mark

    Thanks for this great interview. It gives me an extra insight of how things are done at Stumbleupon.

  19. northierthanthou.com

    Interesting to see how Stumble used to be.