The Internet is akin to a vast ocean of information with another ocean’s worth of information being dumped into it every day and as a result information is constantly being buried under an avalanche of even more information. That’s a lot of information.
StumbleUpon is refreshing in it’s ability to give users trending and sometimes random articles about topics they’re interested in. All you have to do is tell the StumbleUpon app what topics you’re interested in and then you’ll be served the perfect mix of photos, videos, entertaining articles, quotes, news, art, memes, travel tips and a lot more stuff from around the internet.
The interface is quite beautiful in it’s quirky pop ups and material design. However due to the webpages of the articles being shown, it can at times become incredibly cluttered, though this depends on the website the article originates from.
After you’ve setup your profile, either by signing in with Facebook or creating an account from scratch, you can select your interests (of which there are numerous) and get on your way to… Stumbling-upon? Don’t worry though, you can easily head back and change your topics of interest at any time.
I spent the next two hours of my afternoon immersed in StumbleUpon, perusing articles ranging from Computer Security to Greek Mythology with bits of “sports” interspersed between them. I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a StumbleUpon scrub so I upvoted all the articles I read, but mostly because they were all interesting and immersive. I found out how to hack a public wifi spot (like starbucks), discovered a list of a 100 legal websites from which you can download ebooks from and spent half an hour scrolling through pics of lazy animals.
In addition to liking or disliking articles (both of which help StumbleUpon refine and tailor the articles it thinks it should show you) you have the added option to share articles via Twitter, Facebook, in addition to other default sharing options, allowing you to beat Buzzfeed to the chase for once. You can also add “Stumbles” to a personally curated list, or follow lists made by other people whose interests you think are synonymous with yours.
At the end of the week, I found StumbleUpon to be the best way to efficiently procrastinate, turning my hours of lazily day dreaming the moment I join the Avengers into hours of lazily reading incredibly interesting articles.
What do you think about StumbleUpon? Do you have any other apps you think we should look at? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
