So, the site is up, we’re posting, we’re guest posting, we’re interviewing Stumblers, and we’re taking your comments. I suppose that means that we are officially in business and that the original rush of construction is over. We have dusted everything, such as it is, and sanded some of the rough edges. All that having been said, we have a long way to go. To that end, we have some questions. Please give us your answers in comments. Keep it clean, people.

How does the site look?

(I should note here, just to avoid confusion, that I redesigned the banner and changed the color scheme late in the evening of 02-29, based on comments to this post. I also increased the size of the comments text. This may help to make the comments more understandable when you get to them.)

I know, that’s just cosmetic stuff, but it is still important. I saw a comment somewhere on SU that we had the ugliest banner header ever. That may be going a bit far. ;o) Or not. It is supposed to be clean, simple, and recognizable. In a room holding 534 people, you could probably get at least 537 opinions on the design of anything. But there are some important usability issues:

Can you read everything?

Is all the text clear and on a properly contrasted background?

Can you tell where the hyperlinks are?

Can you find all of the navigation controls?

Can you find the RSS feed?

Is there anything else screwed up or missing?

How’s the subject matter?

A very few people have made it clear that they don’t feel that we should be in existence at all, and that we are a waste of space in their pure SU world. My advice to those people is to not come here. If it hurts to do that, people, don’t do that. For that vast majority of you that are not offended by our temerity in building such a site, we want to give you what you want, which brings up the following questions:

What sorts of things would you like to see discussed?

Are we missing any important Stumbler Interview questions?

Would you rather have how-to’s or why-do-we articles?

Do you want comparisons between SU and other social media sites?

Would you like to see polls / voting on the site?

Please give us some feedback. We have had a lot of positive feedback, but most of it has been pretty general in nature. While we appreciate that, the only way that we can make the site better is by figuring out what the readers (that’s you, by the way) want. Do you have something on your mind about StumbleUpon that nobody has covered yet? As you have seen (great post, Webdoodle), we’re open to guest posts and would be happy to work with you on yours.

The thing is, we’re here to stay. As long as we’re going to be here, we might as well be making you happy. So talk to us. Tell us what you want. That’s what the comment section is for.

Brianreeders Stumbleupon Profile:

Brian is a 23 year old single guy from Portland, Oregon, USA.
Likes 3,550 pages, 168 videos, 225 photos • 374 fans • Received 38 reviews

Member since Apr 16, 2007

I’m casual, driven, and like making people laugh. I try to make the most of every day, and try to be grateful for all I have. I am all about people doing things they’re passionate about. I challenge myself. If I want something, I go after it. I hate sitting in traffic- it makes me feel like I’m wasting time. I like sleeping in but never have time to. I try to stay fit. I like traveling and wish I could more. I like seeing those around me succeed. I like having a good time and going out. I hate drama. I smile a lot. I have many passions. I like having fun. I ask myself “is this really my life” often and don’t want that to change. I have some stories…

Visit my personal site at brianreeder.com. Also, IM me at brianrreeder@gmail!

I work for a wallet company called db clay. We make wallets from our own eco-friendly material that will take your breath away.

What caused you to join StumbleUpon and how long have you been Stumbling?

I joined StumbleUpon about 10 months ago, but actually started to use the button and join the community about 4 months ago. I was forced to join by my very web-savvy co-worker, after much scoffing and grinding of teeth. The web-savvy transition was not an easy one for me, but once made I took to it like PBR to trailer parks.

What do you like best about the Stumbleupon experience?

That it is what you make it. Some friends I know that use stumble don’t even know about the “profile” feature. They’re there to stumble and find great new content. I also like that every time you push that button, you’ll see something different. And it may be something I put there…

Is there any feature that you think SU is missing?

Yes. I think stumble needs to have a couple of tiers.

Stumble Basic, for those that love to just find the content.

Stumble Advanced, for those that are submitting and finding.

The interface could be very simple for the Basic version, and very intuitive and clean for the Advanced. I feel like SU is a bit cluttered right now. I’d also love to see a couple of search filters within your friends, such as “who’s online”, and a ranking system. Stumble could also use a huge glamour shot of me on the homepage. I think so, anyway.

Do you belong to any other social networking sites?

God yes. I suffer from OSS (Over Social Syndrome). I belong to:

Digg (breeder)
reddit (brianreeder)
Mixx (brianreeder)
Twitter (brianreeder)

I know I have a couple of more accounts, but these are the most active.

Would you like to tell us a little more about yourself than is in your profile?

I try to be very honest about who I am to everyone. That’s why my stumble avatar was my face for a while, and why my screen name is my real name. I have nothing to hide. I love to travel. I’ve been to 3 continents, and am visiting my fourth in a month. I read a lot, and write a lot too. I have 3 blogs I admin/maintain/post on right now, and I contribute in some form or another to about 10 sites total. I love the web but am not a designer, programmer, engineer, etc. I am a writer at heart, and will publish a book one day. I am pretty random and generally don’t fear much or hold back. I love lamp.

If you could say one thing to the rest of the Stumbling universe, what would it be?

Remember there is a physical world out there, and it is beautiful. Don’t just view amazing photos within this community, go out and find those locations. An experience is worth a million photos of sunsets, beaches, mountain tops, and flowers.

Who are your favorite users within StumbleUpon?

bdarbs, krazykorean, kdfrawg, and burkinaboy have been some of my greatest friends within the community - and they find AMAZING content.

What do you think the future of social media holds?

I think the movement will be towards pure content, and with that site like SU and delicious will take over the social world. I do see the inefficiencies in each community and ways to improve them - I see a new site being created with all of the positives and none of the drawbacks (all new ones i’m sure) of the current social sites. I am interested to see where the world goes, and how it can continue to be a valuable resource for web power users and recreational users alike.

I’m sure you know the feeling. You have found a really wonderful page. Maybe it is quirkily funny, or oddly serious, or something else. It is definitely not run of the mill. You finish digesting the page, eager to click on the thumbs-up button, then move directly to a review of the page. Then, up comes the window that tells you that you are the discoverer of that wonderful page.

At that point, I always feel a certain responsibility to help the page do well. I’m sure that you do, too. But besides that hopeful feeling, there is often a sinking feeling: “What the heck category do I put that into?” Especially with off-the-wall articles, that can be a difficult decision. You know that you are a dedicated (and addicted) stumbler when you do what I have done: used screen capture to get a list of all SU topics onto a few pages that you can use for reference.

You keep those pages on or near your desk, within easy reach, just for moments like this. I actually have mine in an Open Office Writer file on my desktop. After a quick scan of the topics pages, nothing seems quite right. Nor does it after a longer look through the available categories. Usually, I just pick whatever is seems closest, even though it is not quite right, and then try to make up the difference with tags. You have probably found yourself doing much the same thing.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

We are very proud to have Bdarbs as our first Stumbler Interview. Ben was about the first person your humble author met upon joining StumbleUpon. Ben has given me an extraordinary amount of quality help and advice, and I am proud to have him as our first interview!

Bdarbs StumbleUpon Profile

Ben is a 29 year old married guy from Sf Bay Area, California, USA.
Likes 2,832 pages, 65 videos, 61 photos • 249 fans • Received 37 reviews
Member since Jun 07, 2007

Hi I’m Ben Darbs (aka bdarbs / mrbubbleboy). I’ve developed quite an addiction to social networking and am active all day long on Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit looking to make friends and share the great stuff I find on the web. I am a former real estate investor (meaning I sold all my properties) and am now very active in the housing bubble blogger community. Most of My StumbleUpon discoveries are dedicated to housing news, although I’m a huge fan of education (particularly free education) and love to check out and comment on what my friends are stumbling. If you come across a great housing article, educational resource, or anything else that is noteworthy please share it with me. I’m always here to help out my friends, so drop me line or send me something to stumble anytime. | Digg Username: mrbubbleboy | Reddit Username: bdarbs | Mixx Username: bdarbs | AIM: bdarbs123 | Gtalk: bdarbs

Ben responds to the StumbleBlogger interview questions:

1. What caused you to join StumbleUpon and how long have you been Stumbling?

I first joined SU in June of 2007 and like most Stumblers, I didn’t
have a clue what I was doing for several months. Before then, I had
been very active in the housing bubble blogging community and was
looking to find alternative ways to gain exposure to the articles I
cared about.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Today’s feature is a guest post by Branden Long. Branden is the President and CEO of Web Doodle, LLC a web applications development company that specializes in complex database solutions.

A little background on Search Engines

Search engines have evolved drastically since they were first introduced. Early search engines only indexed content for those sites that had been “submitted” to them. Essentially if you didn’t tell them about your web site, it didn’t exist.

The next innovation of search engines included a spidering system, that would find web sites by following all of the links from other sites. The sites were then simply ranked by the number of links. As you can imagine, link farms sprouted up so that they could manipulate the search rankings. This quickly led to the demise of the original MSN, Lycos and Altavista search engines, since the results of their searches would almost always include too many irrelevant results.

Enter Google

Google immediately became a hit because they used the same spidering system that most of the other search engines had adopted, but instead of counting raw links they devised a dynamic method of assigning a value to each link. They called this marvel the PageRank.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Adapted from my post at GeekFromKansas.com.

We all have experienced this phenomenon. One day, we see some interesting tidbit of information. The next day, we see it again, on a different Web site and it is a bit less interesting. By the eighth day, having seen exactly the same thing twelve times, it has become annoying. Well, at least it has become annoying to me.

Some people just find it a natural part of both StumbleUpon and the net. They are not upset or offended by it at all, and that is obviously their right. There is no need that they be offended. But, to me, it is like seeing the same commercial for the fourth time during a half-hour show, or being crapped on for the fourth time by the same seagull. When I click on that Stumble button, I always hope for something fresh. Intellectually, I know that I am not going to always get my wish. Still, emotionally, I don’t want to see that same damned information several times.

The vast majority of these repeated posts were published originally as the Web equivalent of the paper press release. Somebody, either a manufacturer or an advertising agency, wanted people to see these things for commercial purposes. And many of the things are indeed interesting. The people who pick up the original (or a copy) of the electronic press release and copy the words and picture onto their own page just want to get some advertising revenue without having to do much work. Most of these secondary posts at least have a link back to the original. This is all harmless enough, albeit annoying.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

There are probably as many reasons for Stumbling as there are Stumblers. It is at once a very personal matter and a reason for considerable debate and public verbal venom. It would seem to me that there is enough room inside something as big as the World Wide Web for all of the viewpoints, and that coexistence should be pretty easy.

I am here primarily to learn, and to occasionally be surprised and amazed by the next thing that appears on my monitor after I click on the Stumble button. That happens a lot more than I ever thought it would. The amount of content on the Web is almost indescribably large. A lot of it is interesting. And I know, as certainly as you can know anything, that I would not get to as much of it as I do without StumbleUpon.

I did not join StumbleUpon to make new friends. It is not that I am opposed to making new friends, or opposed to meeting people on line. It is just that when I started Stumbling, I did not know that making Stumble-friends was possible. I should have, of course. I have been making friends on the internet since I joined Compuserve in 1981. I just didn’t think of StumbleUpon in those terms, primarily because I can be pretty dim sometimes. But now look at all the wonderful people I have met!

There are some people that join StumbleUpon primarily to promote something. It may be sites for their customers, it may be site for themselves. I do a little of that, too. But it’s hard to think of it as spamming. I work hard at every post I write. I believe that every one of them adds value to the Web. At the very worst, they add more value than one more photoshopped LOL-cat picture.

There are some people that join because it gives them the opportunity to make nasty comments at the expense of other people. There were people like that on Compuserve in 1981, in every forum that I have joined, and in every human habitation since people came down from the trees. Folks like that are just part of the woodwork, a very small, annoying minority, easy enough to ignore. They apparently have their own problems.

I’m not keeping detailed stats on this (I have better things to do) but I would guess that for every whiner and complainer, there are a thousand cool and interesting people using StumbleUpon. They are here for fun. They are here to contribute. They are here make friends. They are here to learn. They are here to teach. The variety is as boundless as the entire human race. That’s why this place is such a gas.

More later, some time, about why people Stumble.

That thought comes into my mind every time I start to Stumble. I cannot even begin to tell you how many things I have learned since I joined SU. I guess it must be about 10,000, since that’s about how many pages, photos, and videos that I have liked since I joined StumbleUpon. I have the maximum (127) topics marked. I would like to mark more. I have yet to come to the end of any of these categories.

How can you not love a place that finds you so many new pages about so many of the things that you like and enjoy? How can you not love a place that teaches you so much every single day? StumbleUpon is like the largest, free-est university in existence! Every day, I get to take 127 classes in the subjects I like best.

How can you not love a place that lets you meet so many great people? StumbleUpon is like the biggest, friendliest coffee shop in the world. Well, sometimes an odd duck wanders in and tears into you for no good reason, but not very often. I have met some of the greatest people of my life in the last few months at StumbleUpon: intelligent, opinionated, and helpful people.

I finally decided that I had to blog about this place and its people. I spend a lot more time on StumbleUpon than I do in my local coffee shop. Sometimes I take my laptop to the coffee shop and do both at once. So I may as well write about it, tell some stories about it, give some tips about it, and generally have a place that is “All Stumbleupon, All the Time.”

I love this place!

p.s. – I’m still tidying up. The place will look better day by day.