StumbleUpon.com - Discover New Sites

StumbleUpon.com is a great site that recently became available for Internet Explorer. The idea is that people can market their sites directly to their target audience in a way that users will actually pay attention to, instead of the basic banners and pop-ups usually used. People download a tool bar to their web browser that allows them to discover new sites that are of high quality based on their interests and what they have seen before. If the user enjoys the site, they can give it a thumbs-up, and if it wasn´t to their liking, they can give it a thumbs-down just by clicking on the tool bar. They can also look at other people´s reviews of the page and review it themselves. This is also helpful for the site creators because then they get a lot of feed back on how their site is being received. Once you´ve searched the site a few times and have rated a bunch of pages, a network is created and people they believe would be good possible friends for you based on your similar site reviews are recommended. Then, you can check the other sites these people have enjoyed for more stumbling pleasure.

“StumbleUpon helps you discover and share great websites. As you click “Stumble!”, we deliver high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by your friends or one of 1,925,540 other websurfers with interests similar to you. Rating these sites you like automatically shares them with like-minded people - and helps you discover great sites your friends recommend.”

This is a great tool for advertisers to reach the specific market they are trying to appeal to. They´ve already got a huge amount of people as registered users and are currently cash flow positive. It´s very easy to use and I can see lots of people using it when they´ve got some time to waste in between whatever they´re working on online.

Will having to download the tool bar draw some people away from using it? How many of the sites that people will actually pay for advertising are sites people would randomly want to come across?