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Rated • 4 reviews • stumbleupon • imageshack.us
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caile-girl/stumbleupon
Last seen: 46 hours ago
elise caile is a woman from The Deep South, Georgia, USA
facebook ~*~ Twitter. Cheers! :-)
For those who understand you, no explanation is necessa
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Preview of Stumbleupon's Upcoming Site Changes | Search...
Rated • 64 reviews • stumbleupon • searchenginejournal.com
Excellent article highlighting the changes in the new BETA format of SU. There are some pros and cons of these changes, of course (as there always will be).
CON: Current users often find the "retro" version bland and sterile.
PRO: However, from what I understand in the founder's message on the subject, he simply stated it does not contain themes yet ~ not that there would not be any in the future. This is just a very basic prototype being tweaked and tested right now. Also, even this basic white version can be customized with HTML/CSS within individual posts just as easily as in the current regular version.
PRO: Currently, a good portion of new users are turned off by SU's complexity (trust me, I've had many inquiries from newbies asking how to do this and that, blah, blah, because they just couldn't absorb it all).
PRO (for me, at least!): Removal of the friends feature. GOOD RIDDANCE! It is such a source of contention and fraught with bruised egos, drama-fests and all sorts of soap-opera ugliness that simply does not belong on a forum of this size and nature. If you want friends, use Facebook. I want to blog and share my finds and thoughts with people of similar interests. Those I want to truly "bond" with I can do so at other sites. There is just too much other stuff going on at SU for that, and I like to take time to get to know "friends," which is very hard to do here at SU. When I am able, I do try to visit my subscribers, so at least having that function enables me to see who they are and maybe get to know some of them better (although lately all I've had time for is post-and-run, sorry!). :-P~
PRO: Even without the friends feature, we can still subscribe to people in the BETA version, and there IS an option to allow individual subscribers to send you site shares (same as the with the mutual friend option in the regular format).
PRO (for me)/CON (for those who use SU as simply a surfing tool vs a blogging forum): While I'm lazy and, like many others, have resorted to using the "What's New" page more than visiting people's blogs (who doesn't?), I like the concept of having to actually visit stumblers' blogs again and getting an idea of who they are and what they're about, instead of seeing a sea of nameless faces scrolling down a page of links. But that's just me.
Before the "What's New" feature was introduced, I had between 100-400 visitors per day. Now, depending on whether or not I've been active here and how long I stick around on a particular day, I get between maybe 5-50. That means approximately 90% of my traffic was wiped out by the "What's New" feature. Even so, any recommended links themselves get a fair amount of traffic as they are visited directly from the "What's New" page after I post my review. So I post a review of a site, people bypass my own site and repost the review and/or go directly to the site I reviewed. Kinda feels like I'm some kind of left-out middleman who has no idea who is going where (except via feedback from some people whose sites I reviewed thanking me for the influx of traffic) ~ but they certainly aren't coming here!
CONS, CONS and more CONS: There are a large number of bugs, kinks, inefficiencies and frustrating things about the new BETA version (see post below).
But these are my personal opinions and observations. I believe in amicably "agreeing to disagree" on this subject. As for the future, who knows what that holds? We'll see. ;-)
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SU Beta: New StumbleUpon Interface (Beta)
Rated • 11 reviews • stumbleupon • stumbleupon.com
I recently wrote a rather lengthy off-SU blog rant about my antipathy toward social networking overload (and my issues with all the changes/complexities increasingly overwhelming me here at SU and negatively affecting my traffic flow, my ability to get to know anyone, etc. blah, blah...you can read the post below if you like).
I sincerely have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and frankly, while I'm certainly not stupid, I do get easily distracted, overwhelmed, confused and generally just "tune out" when I get "information overload" or simply just "too much going on." Even with a computer degree, the sheer volume of information and messages and doodads and constant changes here made it so that I couldn't think or focus. So...when that happens, I just sort of go away to where I feel I can breathe again. (In fact, my mom got so overwhelmed that she ended up having to quit using SU altogether.)
At any rate, both WolvenRevelation" and elledark have brought to my attention the efforts of SU creator(s) to bring back a simpler format that incorporates much of what SU used to be like, yet trying to retain some of the better "new" features without taking away from the format's simplicity.
Additionally, the removal of the "What's New" feature from this BETA version, while a handy component for strictly read-and-tag Stumblers, should help bring visitors to our actual pages instead of bypassing all the original content we "bloggy sorts" like to post that do not appear on the "What's New" page. Once that feature was introduced, many of the top bloggers here on SU found their entire traffic counts decimated, because much of what we were posting was no longer being seen, and only reviewed links of actual sites were showing up on the "What's New" page. So essentially, any originality went ignored by the new feature. [However, this will still be a fixture for users who choose not to use the BETA version, so it will still be a thorn in our sides traffic-wise.]
[Quick visual-slash-smoke break. (Although I don't smoke, feel free...)]
So...I'm trying the new yet back-to-basics version in hopes of regaining a sense of mental clarity and motivation when I come to SU, instead of dreading the sheer "lostness" I have felt here for many, many months now.
I know SU will never be "the same," but at least they are finally taking notice that maybe sometimes it's best to let dedicated users make up their own minds as to how they want things to be, and many of us who were here "before" think they messed with a good thing.
Now, those of us who use the BETA format will get to have more of a regular blogging forum, with proper subscriptions and no more "friend"-related drama. A lot of the unnecessary bells-and-whistles will be replaced simply by user content, and hopefully we will again see some of our former visitors returning.
While I am just now getting acquainted with the new format and can't say much at this point how effective it will be at restoring some of what was great about SU to begin with, I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed.
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I Suck at Social Networking - n.elise caile
Rated • 14 reviews • stumblers, internet, stumbleupon, social networking, blogging • posterous.com
My sincere thoughts about the direction the Internet (and indirectly, StumbleUpon) has taken. Not my usual stuff, so consider yourself warned. SU old-schoolers will most likely relate much more than more recent users. So, anyway...
[Image (c)N.Elise Caile]
UPDATE: Sept. 28
A faint glimmer of hope?
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SU Features: Make List not Grid the default view
Rated • 4 reviews • stumbleupon, stumbling • stumbleupon.com
Thanks to ElleDark for speaking out on this issue.
I totally agree that we should have our default view for visitors be the "list view" (which shows our personal insights as well as other blog posts that may not specifically feature a site and therefore get overlooked by casual visitors), rather than the impersonal and mind-numbing "grid view" which says nothing about the personality of a person's pages, causing them all to blend together like a sea of overwhelming replicas of each other. It's exhausting to wade through, kind of like my previous, long-winded sentence.
For those of us who understand the issue as it applies to stumbling behavior, please go to the forum and let them know your thoughts!
Re-posted from Serinadruid.
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The Best Websites for Chance Encounters - Oprah.com
Rated • 19 reviews • stumbleupon • oprah.com
Check it out: SU's very own article in Oprah mag called "The Most Addictive Website Ever" (which I can't dispute since it's like cyber-crack for us computer nerds). I remember when SU was "just one of the little people" in the Netverse ~ a mere add-on to the Firefox browser.
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StumbleUpon.com: Personalized Recommendations to Help You...
Rated • 20 reviews • stumbleupon • stumbleupon.com
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dynamic-polaritys review - StumbleUpon
Rated • 25 reviews • stumbleupon, tips, help, how to, su • stumbleupon.com
D-P's Handy "New SU" Guide: Helping us all look less like idiots since, uh, sometime around late January.
If the "new" SU interface makes you want to smash your head into a cement wall, you're not alone. To ease your angst, sidle on over to my friend's place and get some serious help. (Now, if I can just get HER to get some serious help...) ;-)
