Sorry, it looks like I just e-mailed everyone in my Contacts list to join StumbleUpon accidentally. I was attempting to see who had already joined, and link up with them.
Jul 25 2007
Thoof Your Way To Fame!
So, you may well already know about Netscape, digg and StumbleUpon in terms of finding stories and blog entries that other people find interesting. Unfortunately, due to the way these systems are setup, people who submit their own posts and entries to these schemes often know how to game the system. This leaves potentially interesting submittals by ‘amateurs’ at the bottom of the pile, whilst those who know the short cuts and fallibilities will often achieve front page status.
Thoof has been setup to ensure fairness for all – the readers can be assured of a fair displaying of stories, and submitters will find that if their entry is actually interesting, it stands a chance of doing very well.
When combined with the use of tags, so that even niche stories can do well against more mainstream news, Thoof ensures that people can read relevant and interesting personalized news.
As you can see below, I have joined the system – signing up took less than 30 seconds, the confirmation e-mail arrived immediately, and submitting my story took less than a minute. All in all, a pretty painless operation, and from a bloggers perspective, a way to increase traffic to your site, assuming you submit posts (& their relevant summaries) that attract other people’s attention. Finally, you can add a little badge to your post (like below) to display just how popular it is.