As a bored college student, I have tirelessly looked for sites to aid me in my procrastination of schoolwork. Throughout my search for wasting time, I have come across two websites that meet my qualifications. The two sites are Stumbleupon.com and Digg.com. Both of these webpages are very similar but are also very unique to the services that they provide. Basically, Stumbleupon and Digg are web-based searches with a focus on entertainment. As an avid user of both of these sites, I have come to the conclusion that because of Stumbleupon’s setup and ease of use, it is more popular than Digg.
To understand why I believe Stumbleupon is superior to Digg, it is useful to analyze the differences between the two sites to see why this is so. Upon visiting Stumbleupon, the audience is refreshed with a simple and organized layout that is easy for any mediocre person to navigate. Once you make your account, which takes no more than five minutes, you are prompted with a list of topics that you are to choose from that reflect your interests. After hitting the “stumble” button you are taken to a site that in some way or another, reflects the interests that you just indicated. If you get bored with the site then you are just a “stumble” away from viewing a different site. A feature that interests a lot of its users is the ability of Stumbleupon to connect with the popular social sites Facebook and Twitter. Overall, Stumbleupon permits its users to waste their time and allows them to view an array of websites with just a quick click of the mouse.
Unfortunately for the users of Digg, a little more work is needed to find useful and interesting sites. Like Stumbleupon, it is necessary to make an account to fully utilize the webpage. Something worth considering when it comes to Digg is the similarity it shares with the websites Facebook and Twitter. At first glance, one could mistake Digg for Facebook because of its layout, color scheme, and font. At the top there is a blue border with “Digg” in white letters and the login box is to the right. Sound familiar? On the left hand side of the webpage there is a list of suggested topics that you are to choose from, and once you have done that Digg brings up a list of profiles/websites that fall into the topics you have chosen. The process of “following” on Digg resembles that of the popular site Twitter. Once you are “following” a particular site, you are free to navigate through the page. Instead of being able to just click a button to view the next site like Stumbleupon, you have to “digg” through a list of webpages to see which one might interest you.
So now you are probably wondering, what do these differences have to do with Stumbleupon being better than Digg? A study was done in 2007 to discover which site is used more by people of the internet, and the results are pretty convincing. Researchers came up with an article whose topic has no relevance to the study, and posted it on both Stumbleupon.com and Digg.com. What were the results? Well, during the three day period that was observed, Stumbleupon saw traffic of almost three times the size of Digg.com. Not convinced? Why don’t we take a look at the number of registered users on each site? As of 2009, Stumbleupon had 5 million users whereas Digg have around 2.7 million users. This fact alone, supports my view of Stumbleupon’s superiority. I do, however, have a few explanations for why these very similar websites are used very differently. For starters, Stumbleupon is a completely new concept and has a very simple layout that attracts its users. Digg uses the best ideas of other existing sites like Facebook and Twitter when it comes to its setup and layout, but seems very cluttered and distracting. The biggest difference I have noticed as a user of both sites is the ease of use on Stumbleupon. All that is required of you in viewing these webpages is a click of the mouse. Digg, however, involves actively searching for sites to view. I believe this speaks to the needs and wants of users of the Internet. The public wants information at the tips of their fingers and if there is a site that offers that kind of exposure, they too can profit from it like Stumbleupon has.
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