Beyond Google: StumbleUpon & "Social Search"

In a podcast I was listening to last week, legendary Web guru, Seth Godin, the author of " Cow," "Small is the New Big," and his new New York Times bestseller, "The Dip," made a fascinating and I believe, brilliant, observation.

When asked what companies he thought might be the next big thing beyond Google, Godin answered: "StumbleUpon: it is social search and it's revolutionizing how we find things on the Web."

Using search engines to locate relevant content typically means hunting through pages of results. Rather than searching for quality web sites, StumbleUpon members are taken directly to web sites matching their personal interests and preferences.

Stumbleupon is collaborative and personal. The service learns about your interests via your preferences and the friends and sites you rank using the Stumbleupon toolbar. If you see a website or content that you like, you press the thumbs up icon. If you did not like it, you give it a thumbs down. StumbleUpon tracks your preferences and serves up high specific web content targeted to your specific interests.

My personal view is that StumbleUpon compliments Google's algorithm-based search. StumbleUpon is the future of search, wrapped in an intense community environment that let's you share you discoveries and interests with friends and hundreds of topic specific groups.

You can listen to Seth Godin discuss the current state of the web and his new bestseller, The Dip at the interactive podcast service, Waxxi, at www.waxxi.us (it should be up, live, by Wednesday).

Posted by Casey Kazan.

StumbleUpon Link

(Apologies of our earlier version -our copyeditor was out today!).

Comments

[sindre]

i found this site by stumbleupon;)