By: Dezmon Landers

StumbleUpon (SU) is an addictive web application that I can’t stop using. The idea is you add a tool bar on your internet browser that has a button. That one button will keep you occupied for hours. Every time you click the “Stumble!” button, it sends you to a new website. You vote (with the toolbar) if that site is interesting or not. As sites get more positive votes, the more they appear in the stumble process and traffic that site receives. You can set your interests so that you can Stumble sites that have been tagged with your tastes.

StumbleUpon has never had any real competition. Then a new site call Streakr was brought to my attention and was said to be as additive as SU. I downloaded the Streakr tool bar and went into the zone. Streakr allows you to pick which categories you dislike as well as picking your interest. The best part about Streakr is they are more transparent than SU. When you give a site a positive vote, you get forwarded to Streakr and can see the number of positive and negative votes that a page has received. SU does not show you those type of stats.

Streakr looks to be more European focused when viewing the sites that are in the rotation. It is still young and lacks a collection of sites the size of StumbleUpon but you will find nuggets. I personally like to view sites that have a business/marketing/entrepreneurship/internet topic, but Streakr is lacking in those sites thus far.

These sites work well if you can tap the users interest and get your site in the index and add positive reviews. It is not consistent traffic, but spikes as you submit pages.

I am still partial to StumbleUpon till Streakr starts to increase its marketing and entrepreneurship categories (I am submitting material and trying to help those areas grow). You must be warned, these tools are very addictive and will occupy hours of time that you would be otherwise working or being with family. Enter at your own risk.

Connect with me on both StumbleUpon and Streakr. My user name is StartupHustle.