Stumbleupon is regarded by many as the best social bookmarking site
around. However, from an active users perspective there are a number
of things which can be improved. One of those things is an effective
way to rank it’s users.
Social media expert Muhammad Saleem has developed a tool addressing
these issues.
Welcome Mu, could you tell my readers what Stumblerank is and what does?
StumbleRank aggregates user statistics from StumbleUpon and then uses them to compare users and rank them based on their activity, the number of fans they have, and the number of reviews they have gotten.
Where did the initial idea for Stumblerank come from and what was
the development process like? Was it easy to get to the finished
product?
The initial idea was simple: The StumbleUpon community page (the one that lists top contributers) doesn’t work, and though people have been asking them to fix it for a while, they haven’t done anything about it. I think StumbleRank provides a useful alternative to the community page, for those looking for the best StumbleUpon contributors. ‘Best’, of course, is defined by the statistic that is most important to you. And with that in mind, you can click any column on the page and re-rank the users on the basis of what you think makes a top Stumbler.
I find the tool amazingly useful. But apart from idle curiosity, how
can the tool enhance a Stumblers experience?
I think it is another way for newcomers to improve their StumbleUpon experience and that of others they share content with. By looking at the list, and analyzing what the top Stumblers on the list are doing, you too can emulate their best practices while sharing the content you enjoy. Furthermore, you can seek out these users for help or advice on Stumble Etiquette, best practices, etc.
Stumbleupon must have thought of this feature as it is so obvious and
some point rejected it. Why do you think that is?
It seems they thought of this feature, and implemented it in away (at the community page) and though it was broken, they just didn’t fix it.
What is the future for Stumblerank? Would you like Stumbleupon to buy
you out and integrate you into their site?
Honestly, that would be great, but even if they don’t buy out StumbleRank and just implement the feature in away that improves the general StumbleUpon experience, I’m all for it.
You use the term “Stumble”in the domain name. What legal issues may
there be with associating the title with Stumbleupon? I haven’t
noticed Stumble being trademarked but I wonder if this may be an issue
for the future.
There are several sites that use Stumble in their domain name, the most prominent (and one of my favorites) is StumbleGods. StumbleUpon hasn’t been pursuing ‘Stumble’ as a trademark and I hope they don’t pursue legal action against me either.
One of the things I take from the site is an instant injection of
competitive fever. I notice Stumblers I know very well such as Andy
Beard and Rose are ahead of me in the number of fans they have and it
certainly focuses the mind. Do you think that perhaps because a tool
like this wasn’t available it added the laid back feel of Stumbleupon.
I think this tool does add an element of competition, but not in a way that will be detrimental to the SU experience. Based on the feedback I have gotten already, I will be tweaking the site a little so that Stumbles are given less importance than Fans and Reviews (which obviously are hard to game). Once those tweaks go live, the only kind of competition that will exist will be the competition to Stumble top-notch content so that you get positive reviews and so that people want to friend you.
What is the future for Stumblerank.com? Any new features? For example
it would be great to be able to scroll through multiple pages.
As the site stands right now, it is incredibly basic. There are some features that I would like to add to it, among them the ability to directly rank people on the quality of their content (i.e. one way to do this would be to calculate average number of reviews per discovered page).
I have some ideas but they will all take time because StumbleUpon doesn’t have an API that would let me do this easily.
You are also a top digger as well as an active Stumbler, how much time
do you put into each site?
I spend most of my online time between reading and writing on blogs and on the various socially driven sites. I think between Digg, Propeller, and StumbleUpon, it is safe to say that I spend around 20-25 hours a week on these sites. Perhaps disproportionally so on StumbleUpon (since its so easy to just keep clickin’, just keep clickin’).
I notice you have advertising boxes ready and waiting to be filled.
What type of advertiser is best suited for the site. Take this time to
pitch to potential advertisers 😉
I was going to have advertisements on the site, and I got a lot of enthusiasm too, but for now I have decided to remove the boxes now and focus strictly on the user experience. Perhaps sometime in the future I will pitch to advertisers.
I have lots of ideas of things I would like to see, like the ability
to enter a keyword and rank the top stumblers accordingly. Is there a
forum or a blog where people can leave suggestions, comments or even
criticisms? I think a blog would be an excellent idea, I would
definitely subscribe.
For now, I have been getting questions, comments, and queries through the email I have listed on the site. Soon, I will be putting a blog up as well, probably at stumblerank.com/blog. Look for it soon.
Thanks for the time you have taken over the question Mu. Again,
congrats on the tool, it certainly adds to my Stumbling experience.
Stumblerank can be found here
You can:
Rank by Fans
Rank by pages submitted
Rank by photos
Rank by Videos
Rank by Reviews
Mu can be found at his blog at the drill down and on digg and also on Stumbleupon
StumbleGods can be found here
btw my Stumble page is here
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