Things haven’t been looking good for StumbleUpon just recently. First, traffic levels have been flat for some time now. Second, eBay announced the are looking to sell their acquistion after only 18 months. Although these signs don’t look promising the actual number of users registering has been steadily growing. StumbleUpon is hoping that a new web toolbar will cure the current traffic malaise (note - apparently, users are signing up but not coming back to the home page which, in turn, returns low traffic figures for the site).

The key aspect of this new toolbar is that it doesn’t require installation. No more browser plugins to slow down Firefox - I’m up for that. The toolbar works like this - it runs algorithm based on your, and other users, preferences to direct you to websites that you’ll find interesting.

To use the toolbar, simply go to StumbleUpon’s updated home page and click on one of the ‘Recommended Sites’ links and you’ll see the toolbar, complete with Stumble icon, on top of the page. Nice and easy. The one flaw with this toolbar is that many new users will unaware of what it does. In other words, it’s time to get out there and beat the StumbleUpon drum!

Popularity: 48% [?]