Make Seriously | Design and Life

Sometimes, being the stumbling block ain’t so bad…

In my last (and thus far only) installment in my web 2.0 discussions I went over Twitter and it’s uses for marketers. I know far less about how to creatively manipulate todays subject: StumbleUpon. I will make the best of it, however, and show some of my own startling results due to the use of this content networking tool.

StumbleUpon is, at it’s core, a virtual network that collects user ratings, reviews, and recommendations for online content and passes it on to other users. That is, to say, it allows people to say what they think is cool and noteworthy. If enough people agree, the network begins to emphasize that content. So, if 500 people “stumble upon” Radiohead giving away their album online (without any other press) and all of them say “hey! look at this!” it will start to show up in other users StumbleUpon content. Then those people will be encouraged to visit Radiohead’s site, and if they think it’s cool then the momentum builds. In a bit more detail later, I’ll explain why this has some pretty incredible potential.

A little background first. StumbleUpon is relatively new. It was founded in 2001, and only breaking the million user mark in 2006 (and then rapidly growing it’s user base). It was founded by Garret Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance, and Eric Boyd, and has received investments from bigwigs at the likes of Google, Mozilla, and First Round Capital. In 2007, it was purchased by America’s favorite online auction site: eBay. (I prefer Amazon, myself…)

What is StumbleUpon
That’s the real question. It’s also where the train moves fast, so buckle up and hold on tight because I’ve never been accused of having a way with words (also a great radio show on WFYI radio on the weekends…)

StumbleUpon (hereafter referred to as SU) uses a process called “collaborative filtering.” This process begins as users submit their “stumbles”, basically providing their human opinion. This is where they let everyone know what they think it worth looking at. In the second part of this process, SU uses “machine learning of personal preference” to work through the submitted information and segment the users into virtual networks of like-minded users. This means that SU has a mathematical, intuitive formula that says “these people all tend to like these things, so I’ll place them together into segments”. It’s sort of like a venn diagram with five million spheres of influence. Here’s an example of how interests could overlap and result in a single common interest that puts a single user into multiple spheres of influence.

So, as users “stumble” new content, their profiles are updated and SU generates a peer network based on that information and links users by common interest. These networks are arranged to disseminate information that is explicitly recommended by other peers in the network. As each user in that network stumbles it, it has the potential to spread to other shared networks. Users can also, if they choose to be social, participate in rating one another and joining in on discussions in the SU message boards.

In 2006 SU extended their process to include videos. StumbleUpon Video aggregates videos from YouTube, Google Video, Myspace and Metacafe and uses it’s process for video content. A version of SU Video was released in early 2007 for Wii users.

SU also has sponsored ads that take advantage of it’s segmentation method and can target very specific user groups with material relevant to their interests.

Now for the real power of SU. A while ago, a friend read my blog and “stumbled” it. Now, I’m nothing big or important, but here’s how my daily traffic pattern went: 3, 3, 4, 2, 0, 0, 3, 1, 140, 32, 15, 3. Notice something there? That was the day I got stumbled. Now, if all of you slackers took my advice with Twitter, you could have subscribed to my feed. When I post, you could “stumble” my work, and then it kind of would maybe mushroom cloud from there. Of course, what I write about is maybe slightly amusing at best, so people would catch on quickly. BUT, in the meantime, I could once again experience how it feels to be one of the cool kids in high school as my narcissistic side screams “look at me! I have a blog!”

As a business model, however, it is clear that it’s a powerful tool when used in conjunction with other social “news spreading” tools. So, sometimes, being stumbled on isn’t such a bad thing. (now go stumble me darnit!)

That cookie last night was so tweet.

Twitter has become somewhat of a phenomenon, coming from nowhere, achieving extreme popularity, and like all things “viral” it’s been abused by marketers. It’s also been used very effectively and creatively by those same people. Since it’s become such a ubiquitous tool, I thought it would be a good time to help people understand what it is and how it’s used.

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a free service that allows users to provide status updates, called tweets, to people who subscribe. These come in the form of SMS messages made up of 140 or fewer characters. Messages can be compiled on the user’s website, sent as a syndicated feed, or transmitted as SMS messages to cell phones. Those messages can also be limited to only permitted subscribers, so Twitter users can control who is allowed to receive tweets.

Where did it come from?
Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams, and it began as an R&D project at Odeo.

What are some examples of use?
There are a ton of ways to use Twitter, and for each of those ways there’s a different person doing it. This section is devoted to examples of people who are using it everyday.
- Whole Food Markets sent Rich Brooks, president of Flyte New Media, a gift card after Brooks tweeted about their product to about 300 of his subscribers. (the tweet was unsolicited, WFM happened to pick up on it and decided to reward him)
- The Scottsdale, Arizona police are providing citizens tweets about closures, crimes, and crime scenes to keep them updated on news affecting their neighborhoods.
- The Los Angeles Fire Department, with a spark of genius, got on Twitter to allow residents to subscribe and keep track of the wildfires.
- NASA announced the discovery of ice on Mars using, you guessed it, Twitter. They also let you keep up to date with the space station. In fact, NASA may be Twitter’s biggest fan….
- Because there is no social network untouched by politics, it comes as no surprise that Barack Obama used twitter to spread the word about Hope and Change, while Ralph Nader paired his tweets with google maps to let you know where his ballot access teams were. In other news, less than 1% of the population cares.
- University of Texas San Antonio College of Engineering (whew…) uses it to update their students. No one saw using technology to reach engineers coming….
- Westwinds Church uses it in an interesting way: they solicit real-time thoughts from congregants. Wonder if we can use it to tweet Jesus? Tweet Jesus!
- Activists used it to coordinate protests at the RNC.
- Even the British Prime minister tweets people to some of his daily routine (da dun, ching!)
- UC Berkely journalism grad student James Buck was arrested while photographing a protest in Egypt. On his way to the police station, he tweeted his arrest and his followers contacted the US embassy, the university, and the press on his behalf. He was released the next day.
- New Scientist magazine found Twitter to be a more effective tool during the Virginia Tech shootings than the tradition form of media. It’s like college students have cell phones in class or something…
- The Red Cross uses tweets subscribers to keep them alert in the case of disasters.

What are some creative uses?
Glad you asked! (or at least that I implied you asked!)
- You can offer time sensitive offers. Baskin Robbins has tweeted about 31 cent scoop night. If you were a subscriber, that was a sweet tweet.
- You can let your subscribers know your schedule
- You can “stumble” websites to people who follow you
- You can offer daily promotionals
- You can recruit for open positions
- You can reinforce your brand
- You can solicit user feedback, get their opinions, or do on the fly market research
- You can update about live events for those who can’t attend. Radiohead, like, totally is ending with Creep! In under 140 characters!
- You can update about new products, like those introduced at the Apple Keynote.
- You can provided internal updates (this is where limited subscribing might be a good idea…)

What are some things you should do with Twitter?
- learn to create brief, but engaging, statements and questions
- use it like a press release. Whole Foods was able to inform it’s 3000 subscribers about a recall instantly
- Search for what others are saying about your business, or the products of your clients
- Talk back. Information doesn’t only benefit the person who asked you for it.
- Improve your relationship with clients.
- Track trends.
- Drive traffic to your home URL and to your business
- Claim your identity. Before someone else does.

So, what are some things to avoid?
- Don’t spam people. No one likes spam. Lots of people like SPAM. No one likes spam.
- Don’t be mundane. Give readers a reason to subscribe, and remind them why they did.
- Don’t tell your life’s story. There is such a thing as TMI, and frankly, in a 140 character or less format no one cares.

I hope you’ve learned more about Twitter today. If not, try it out and you’ll learn a lot more than I could ever teach you. There’s also this crazy internet thing. Take advantage of it.