Stumble Without the Bar

Most of my work is online, so when I have some dead time, I like to "Stumble" and discover new and interesting sites. That is one way I let you all know about some sites that I have found. The bad thing about StumbleUpon (and actually not that bad) was the fact that you needed the toolbar installed to actually Stumble. Me, I use every browser that does not work with that toolbar, so what I was doing was actually closing my current browser and opening another (FireFox or Explorer) to Stumble. I no longer have to!

There are a million sites. In fact, we are running out of addresses and so some creative site URLs are beginning to pop up. StumbleUpon allows you to click a button and takes you to random sites based on what you like. Like technology (Rhetorical question)? You are generally stumbled on tech sites (maybe this one). It is pretty fun sometimes.

On Tuesday night StumbleUpon changed the way users interact with the service, ditching the need for a software-based browser toolbar in place of a small frame that loads on top of the Web site you're on. Users with the toolbar installed will still be getting the same experience, but the idea is that anyone can begin stumbling without having to install anything.

To get the Web toolbar to show up in the first place, users must now begin their stumbling experience from the StumbleUpon home page. The site is now broken up into categories. Once you've clicked on a link the experience begins, with the persistent toolbar following you from site to site and keeping track of your ratings to provide you with new stumbles.

StumbleUpon is great and I like this direction. Now I can stumble within Google Chrome and Safari. So, go ahead and check it out. You will be surprised at some of the things you will find on the internet. And if you are reading this article, it wouldn't hurt to Stumble me occasionally :-).