Young Entrepreneur Blog

StumbleUpon has had a whopping 4 million downloads, and to celebrate we have a world exclusive interview with the top 30 users of Stumbleupon.com

Today we are speaking with Stumbleupon top user: Anita Bath

How long have you been an active user of StumbleUpon?
About 1 year

What makes you use StumbleUpon more than the other social sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us etc…?
It’s quick, easy, and I don’t feel like I need to contribute more than I want. Plus, it’s not a troll fest like Digg or Reddit, most users are genuinely interested in just finding neat stuff.

If you could make one positive change to the current Stumbeupon platform, what would it be?
Better video and blog formatting support

What don’t you like about the current StumbleUpon platform?
Very easy to discover new and interesting things. The concept of just clicking “stumble” and getting something new and interesting is just so refreshing.

What are the main factors you look for in content that you feel is worth stumbling?
Depends on my mood. Some days I look for comics and bizarre news, other days I’m looking for personal finance and economics. Usually I’m focused on the lighter stuff though.

Is there anything that puts you off stumbling an article?
If I don’t thoroughly enjoy it, I don’t stumble it. If it looks like spam, I give it a thumbs-down.

What sort of topics interest you the most?
My top topics (according to my tag cloud) are humor, bizarre/oddities, and photography

What advice would you give to a brand new user of Stumbleupon?
Make sure to thumb up sites you like, and if there are other stumblers with content you enjoy, add them as a fan. This is the best way to make SU enjoyable

Do you ever get thanked by the site owners after you stumble their content?
For some blogs, yes. Particularly if they get more than 20,000 or so visitors as a result

Has anyone ever tried to bribe you into stumbling their content?
Yes. I’ve been offered anything from reciprocal stumbles to $100. I always block anyone who solicits stumbles, and now have a pretty significant block list.

Do you own a website? And if so, what have been your biggest StumbleUpon successes from your site?
I used to own http://www.saynotocrack.com/ . At the point I sold it, the site was receiving about 1/3 of its 400,000 unique visitors from StumbleUpon, so I’d view that as a success.

What are your thoughts on stumbling your own content?
Typically I didn’t stumble my own site unless I wrote something I thought was fantastic and it didn’t get picked up by SU for a few weeks.

What are your thoughts on Linkbait and people creating content with the sole aim of getting traffic from sites like Stumbleupon?
I think the two are separate. Linkbait is just great content that people want to link to. IMO, every blogger should strive for writing such articles. But creating content with the sole purpose of getting traffic from SU is different. Oftentimes people with this goal steal others’ content ( e.g. pictures, movies, jokes) then submit it to SU without giving credit. Unlike Linkbait, this practice is deceptive and I typically thumbs-down any sites that employ it.

Are you influenced by factors like authority of the website, design of the website etc? And if so, what sort of things do you specifically look for?
Authority of site doesn’t really matter, but design certainly does. I’m not going to thumb-up bad content on a great looking site, but I’m also not going to thumb-up amazing content on a site with 100’s of ads or other design choices that make it difficult to read.

Why do you feel you are in the top 30 most powerful users of StumbeUpon?
“Top Stumblers” is just a reflection of how many people thumb up the sites you submit over a certain timeframe (e.g. past 60 days). I submit 5-20 new sites per day, and many of these end up being rather popular.

What advice would you give to anyone who wanted to get into the top 30?
First I’d ask “why?” Being a Top Stumbler doesn’t convey any benefits. You also get slightly more spam. It’s really just a way to say “thanks” to the folks who are consistently finding great sites for SU. I’d tell the person that if they really wanted to be a Top Stumbler, they should just commit to submitting 10+ quality sites, that have not already been submitted, to SU per day. Quality is the key though, submitting sites that others don’t like won’t get you on the Top Stumblers list.

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