---
title: "StumbleUpon Continues To Impress"
date: 2006-09-26
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2006"
    url: "/tag/2006.md"
---

# StumbleUpon Continues To Impress

![stumbleupon](https://web.archive.org/web/20110811185005im_/http://static.flickr.com/92/228641167_439490de71_s.jpg)We hear a lot about digg, Slashdot and del.icio.us as traffic drivers for media websites and blogs. But one site that doesn’t get enough props in this regard is [StumbleUpon](https://web.archive.org/web/20110811185005/http://www.stumbleupon.com/). In our recent [Social Bookmarking Faceoff](https://web.archive.org/web/20110811185005/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_bookmarking_faceoff.php), we noted that StumbleUpon has the largest user base with 1,271,345 users. Its main rival in the space, del.icio.us, [recently announced](https://web.archive.org/web/20110811185005/http://blog.del.icio.us/blog/2006/09/million.html) it had reached 1 million users.

StumbleUpon is basically a browser plugin which makes it very easy to submit and vote on websites. Simply download the plugin (Firefox or IE) and then click the “I like it!” icon to ‘stumble’ a webpage. Once a link has been submitted, it can propagate out to the large community of SU users in a very viral way.

[Neil Patel](https://web.archive.org/web/20110811185005/http://www.pronetadvertising.com/), who has given me a lot of excellent advice about website optimization, recently wrote a post entitled [How to get StumbledUpon](https://web.archive.org/web/20110811185005/http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/how-to-get-stumbledupon.html). It’s a great introduction to StumbleUpon and a must-read. In fact, [subscribe](https://web.archive.org/web/20110811185005/http://feeds.feedburner.com/PronetAdvertising) to Neil’s blog if this kind of thing interests you.

I can attest to the power of StumbleUpon – our most popular post over the past couple of months (according to my Google Analytics service) has been [Top 10 Firefox Web 2.0 Add-ons](https://web.archive.org/web/20110811185005/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_firefox_addons.php). Usually our top posts are ones that have had the fortune to be Slashdotted or dugg. But this one got neither. Instead, 27% of its traffic was driven by StumbleUpon and 14% by del.icio.us. And the flow from StumbleUpon continues. I have to admit though that it’s one of only a few R/WW posts to have been stumbled in a big way, so like digg and Slashdot it’s not something publishers can expect on a regular basis.

StumbleUpon is yet another example of a Web-based community that has gained a significant user base in a seemingly short period of time. Check it out!

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/stumbleupon_impresses.php))*