This past weekend we asked for your help in predicting whether eBay would sell StumbleUpon. We hope that the rumors aren’t true. If they are, StumbleUpon isn’t rolling over and playing dead. It seems StumbleUpon may give eBay a reason to hold that thought. The service is looking to expand their offerings beyond their toolbar with two big new services today.
Stumble Beyond the Toolbar
Today StumbleUpon has introduced a way for new visitors of the service to Stumble without the toolbar. To make discovering new sites easier, the service has turned their homepage into a stumbling portal. The homepage will now feature popular content from various categories. Unlike its current homepage, this one will be updated daily. This will also give new visitors a chance to use the service without having to install the toolbar. Those with unsupported browsers will appreciate the change too.
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StumbleUpon Partner Program
StumbleUpon has also announced services to partnering sites. To increase effectiveness and appeal for partner content, StumbleUpon will offer stumbling services directly on partnering sites for visitors to stumble through. Currently this is available for the visitors of the following partner sites:
- The Huffington Post
- HowStuffWroks
- RollingStone
- National Geographic
Exclusive Services…For Now
StumbleUpon is offering these great new services for new visitors and selective partners only. However, there are plans to expand these services to current members and more partners. We think these services will definitely help to give StumbleUpon not only a nice boost, but a brighter future. The homepage redesign is sure to receive great traffic and provide both new and current members with more interaction with the service. The option to stumble through content without clicking the toolbar numerous times is a welcomed alternative. We’re sure that quite a few blogs are more than happy about the Partner Program. Only time will tell how long until we can all enjoy these services.
