Social discovery tool StumbleUpon has inspired 25 billion clicks by
directing people to pages accross broad topics like “art” or “fashion.”
Now it’s taking its recommendations to a more specific level with a new
feature it launched on Wednesday.
With the “Explore Box” feature, users can Stumble pages related to
hundreds of thousands specific topics — like Vincent Van Gogh — instead
of working within about 500 set categories — like art — that StumbleUpon
has stuck to in the past. It’s as though a search engine and a “best
of” list had a child. If StumbleUpon hasn’t sorted the exact term you’re
looking for, it will match you with the next best thing.
Right now the feature is restricted to a small search bar in the browser
product. But despite the minimal presence on the homepage, it’s a huge
change for StumbleUpon.
In the future, StumbleUpon CEO Garrett Camp says, StumbleUpon will
integrate Explore Box’s technology with its follow feature so that users
can Stumble a mix of general and specific topics. That will make the
discovery engine a lot more personalized, and eventually (though Camp
says probably not anytime soon) enable StumbleUpon’s advertisers to more
closely target their ads.