When I first started blogging, every now and then I’d receive an avalanche of traffic. In fact, the first time it happened it crashed my server (I had been running the Servantofchaos.com blog on a server in my garage, and it just could not cope) – and I ended up switching to Typepad.
The culprit was StumbleUpon.
These days, social networks like Twitter or Facebook garner most of the attention, but this new infographic from column 5 media shows just how powerful StumbleUpon can be. In fact, it drives over 50% of social media traffic in the US. And the coolest thing is that while pages shared via Twitter have a half life of about 3 hours, stumbled pages are over 130 times more effective.
StumbleUpon also has a cool way of managing and scheduling your shared links. Called su.pr, it helps you optimise your shared links by time of day – I wrote about it here. And while many people tend to dislike the StumbleUpon toolbar, with a small investment of your time, the system can deliver you some great content and plenty of new on-topic information. It takes the randomness of the web out and replaces it with serendipity. What more could you ask for?
You’re a bit late to the game… I used to stumble on a regular basis. Started in 2005 and went strong through 2010. Unfortunately some recent changes to the way things work (and that short lived acquisition by eBay) spooked the dedicated stumblers. All that’s left are the SEOtards and ad moguls. Honest folk up and left for greener pastures.
Good luck though.