Ok so I've just started exploring my topic which is social bookmarking through StumbleUpon.com. I'm by no means a StumbleUpon virgin, but I haven't used the site nearly as much as some other people I know use it or as much as say, I use Facebook. In the past when I discovered Stumble! I just used it to browse through and discover cool new websites, some of which were really obscure, which I never would have discovered on my own. I can't remember if I bothered to rate the sites but I definately didn't take advantage of everything the site has to offer.
A quick refresher course for those of you who aren't familiar with this:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/productdemo/
The above link is a virtual tour of the website that takes you through the process step by step. It's a quick and easy way to see exactly how the site works and what you're getting into.
Basically, you select topics that interest you and then based on your interests, StumbleUpon takes you to one website after another, tailored to fit your individual needs. If you like a website, you click the thumbs up icon- I like it! If not, you can click thumbs down. The more you rate websites you like and/or dislike, the more likely it is StumbleUpon will find sites that interest you.
The key word here is personalization, one of the defining features of Web 2.0 we've been discussing in class. Other sites do this too- for example, Pandora.com lets you create your own playlist and suggests similar music you might like. Google search engine automatically records what you search for and this in turn, shapes your ad experience. There are an endless amount of other sites doing this type of stuff.
Your favorite websites are automatically saved; you can also share these sites with friends or see their favorites. It's a win-win situation.
There's even a convenient Stumble! app you can add to your toolbar.
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