The StumbleUpon effect is real

The StumpleUpon acquisition rumor is interesting if not a bit weird, but it doesn’t surprise me that they are being taken seriously. They weren’t really on my radar until I recently looked at the traffic reports for my wife’s blog, HelpThing.

She got a massive spike sourced from StumbleUpon referrals which, of course, is relative given her small audience, yet. But it wasn’t an isolated incident, and now you can see here that StumbleUpon is actually a very healthy source of traffic in addition to MyBlogLog and del.icio.us. This chart is the referral sources for the past week in which she got a smaller spike on a somewhat older post.

There is something strangely addictive about it, and there is so much room to build interesting discoverability now that they are crossing the critical mass chasm.

I don’t know too many people who use it (well, I haven’t asked many, to be honest), but the ones who do always give you a sheepish grin when you ask them about it. It’s hard not to like after using it a few times, and it does feel like they might be on to something potentially pretty big here.