NationMaster - Encyclopedia: StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and hardcore pornography. Webpages are presented when the user clicks the "Stumble!" button on the browser's toolbar. StumbleUpon chooses which new webpage to display based on the user's ratings of previous pages,ratings by his/her friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests. i.e. it is a recommendation system which uses peer and social networking principles. There is also one-click blogging built in as well. Users can rate, or choose not to rate, any webpage with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and clicking the Stumble button resembles "channel-surfing" the web. Toolbar versions exist for Firefox, Mozilla Application Suite and Internet Explorer, but also works with some independent Mozilla-based browsers. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Powderfinger is an alternative rock band based in Australia. ... Stumblin is a song released as a promotional single from from Australian rock group Powderfingers first live album These Days: Live in Concert. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links SU-Toolbar-Firefox. ... Firefox may refer to: Firefox (novel), written by Craig Thomas, published in 1978 Firefox (film), the 1982 movie starring Clint Eastwood, based on the novel Firefox (arcade game), the laserdisc arcade game based on the movie Mozilla Firefox, a web browser The Red Fox or the Red Panda, based on... Software design is the process that starts from a problem for which there is currently no acceptable (software) solution, and ends when such a solution has been created. ... For other uses, see Software developer (disambiguation). ... This article is about the online auction center. ... Code complete redirects here. ... In computing, a platform describes some sort of framework, either in hardware or software, which allows software to run. ... Firefox may refer to: Firefox (novel), written by Craig Thomas, published in 1978 Firefox (film), the 1982 movie starring Clint Eastwood, based on the novel Firefox (arcade game), the laserdisc arcade game based on the movie Mozilla Firefox, a web browser The Red Fox or the Red Panda, based on... Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE), commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems starting in 1995. ... SeaMonkey is a free, open source, and cross-platform Internet suite that is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... Proprietary software is software with restrictions on copying and modifying as enforced by the proprietor. ... The term Freeware refers to gratis proprietary software with closed source. ... A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos or other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML... A plugin (plug-in, addin, add-in, addon or add-on) is a computer program that interacts with a main (or host) application (a web browser or an email program, for example) to provide a certain, usually very specific, function on demand. ... An early toolbar on a Xerox Alto Computer In a graphical user interface on a computer monitor a toolbar is a row, column, or block of onscreen buttons or icons that, when clicked, activate certain functions of the program. ... Recommendation systems are programs which attempt to predict items (movies, music, books, news, web pages) that a user may be interested in, given some information about the users profile. ... A social network is a map of the relationships between individuals, indicating the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. ... A weblog (now more commonly known as a blog) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally, but not always, in reverse chronological order). ... Channel surfing is the practice of quickly scanning through different television channels or radio frequencies in order to find something interesting to watch or listen to. ... Firefox may refer to: Firefox (novel), written by Craig Thomas, published in 1978 Firefox (film), the 1982 movie starring Clint Eastwood, based on the novel Firefox (arcade game), the laserdisc arcade game based on the movie Mozilla Firefox, a web browser The Red Fox or the Red Panda, based on... The Mozilla Application Suite (originally known as Mozilla, marketed as the Mozilla Suite, and code named Seamonkey) is a free, cross-platform internet suite, whose components include a web browser, an e-mail and news client, an HTML editor, and an IRC client. ... Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer abbreviated MSIE), commonly abbreviated to IE, is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems starting in 1995. ...

eBay acquired StumbleUpon in May of 2007 for $75,000,000(75 million) USD.^[3] This article is about the online auction center. ...

Foundation

StumbleUpon was founded by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance, and Eric Boyd during Garrett's time in post-graduate school (in Calgary, Alberta, Canada). The idea of creating a company was established before the content, of the 5-6 ideas for products, StumbleUpon was chosen. Garrett describes in a BBC interview the moment for him in which he felt the company had really taken off: "When we passed the half a million mark (in registered users) it seemed more real." The popularity of the software attracted Silicon Valley investor Brad O'Neill to take notice of the company and assist with a move to San Francisco, as well as bringing in subsequent fund-raising totaling $1.2 million from other Angel Investors including Ram Shriram (Google), Mitch Kapor (Mozilla Foundation), Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital), and Ron Conway. Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith now reside in San Francisco, where StumbleUpon is headquartered. The British Broadcasting Company Ltd was a British commercial company formed on October 18, 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom. ... For the Nintendo 64 game, see Space Station Silicon Valley. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Angel Investors (or simply Angels) are affluent individuals who provide capital for business start-ups, usually in exchange for an equity stake. ... Ram Shriram served as an officer of Amazon. ... Mitch Kapor Mitch Kapor (center) with Bill Gates and Fred Gibbons, during their time working on developing applications for the Apple Macintosh, 1984 Mitchell David Kapor (born 1950) is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the killer application often credited with making... Image:Kopelman. ...

History

Service details

StumbleUpon uses collaborative filtering (an automated process combining human opinions with machine learning of personal preference) to create virtual communities of like-minded websurfers. Rating websites updates a personal profile (a blog-style record of rated sites) and generates peer networks of websurfers linked by common interest. These social networks coordinate the distribution of web content, such that users 'stumble upon' pages explicitly recommended by friends and peers. Collaborative filtering (CF) is the method of making automatic predictions (filtering) about the interests of a user by collecting taste information from many users (collaborating). ... This article is about modern humans. ... As a broad subfield of artificial intelligence, machine learning is concerned with the design and development of algorithms and techniques that allow computers to learn. At a general level, there are two types of learning: inductive, and deductive. ... A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Users rate a site by giving it a thumbs up, thumbs down or neutral (neither thumbs up or down) selection on the StumbleUpon toolbar, and can optionally leave additional commentary for the site's review page, which also appears on the user's blog. This social content discovery approach automates the "word-of-mouth" referral of peer-approved websites and simplifies web navigation. Hand gestures, are gestures performed by one or two hands. ...

Stumblers also have the ability to rate and review each others' blogs as well as join interest groups, which are community forums for specific topics. Users can post comments much like a discussion board in these groups and post websites that apply to the specific topic.

Video

On December 13, 2006, StumbleUpon launched their StumbleVideo site at http://video.stumbleupon.com/. The new site allows users without a toolbar to "stumble" through all the videos that toolbar users have submitted and rate them using an AJAX interface. The site currently aggregates videos from YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, and MySpace Videos. is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... // Ajax may refer to: Ajax the Great as a well known hero from the Trojan war and son of Telamon Ajax the Lesser son of the king of Locris, and another hero in the Trojan war Ajax (missionary), Arian missionary who converted the pagan Suevi c. ... YouTube is a popular video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. ... Google Video logo Google Video is a free video sharing and video search engine service from Google that allows anyone to upload video clips to Googles web servers as well as make their own media available free of charge; some videos are also offered for sale through the Google... Metacafe website Metacafe desktop application Metacafe is a media and video sharing community on the internet. ... MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos. ...

StumbleUpon launched a version of StumbleVideo for the Internet Channel web browser that runs on the Wii console on February 12, 2007. This version of StumbleVideo is optimized for the Wii's smaller screen resolution and offers similar functionality to that of the original version. The Internet Channel is a version of the Opera web browser for use on the Wii by Opera Software and Nintendo. ... The Wii (pronounced as the pronoun we, IPA: ) is the fifth home video game console released by Nintendo. ... is the 43rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ...

StumbleThru

In April 2007, StumbleUpon launched the StumbleThru service at http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumblethru.php, allowing users of the toolbar to "stumble through" pages from various sites such as The Onion, Public Broadcasting Service, and Wikipedia. According to the announcement of the feature, StumbleUpon plans on adding additional websites in the future. April 2007 is the fourth month of the year. ... The Onion is a United States-based parody newspaper published weekly in print and daily online. ... PBS redirects here. ... Wikipedia (IPA: , or ( ) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. ...

Advertising

StumbleUpon uses knowledge of user preferences to deliver targeted advertising. A small proportion of the 'stumbles' users come across (typically less than 2%) are sponsored pages matching their topics of interest. For example, those signed up for photography will occasionally see an ad related to photography. Such content is vetted by humans for "quality and relevance" prior to its delivery. A sponsored site is identifiable by a green "person" logo on the toolbar. Paid accounts (referred to as "Sponsors") have a variety of options, including the ability to turn off such advertising.

Success

In July 2006, StumbleUpon had 1 million users.^[4] According to the homepage, StumbleUpon has over 4 million members as of December 11th, 2007. In May 2007 StumbleUpon was purchased by Ebay. Early reports indicated they were also in talks with Google before the Ebay announcement. Early elections in November are announced in the Netherlands. ...

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