This post is far from timely, so you've likely already heard about and use StumbleUpon.  If you haven't: I'm about to ruin your life.
Basically, you install the plugin & configure your account to specify topics you're interested in ... Then, whenever you click the Stumble button you're whisked away to a random page on the internet that fits your configured your interests.  So, if you're like me and just checked every single box you could, then you're literally brought to a random page on the internet.  This pretty much makes StumbleUpon a power-house of a timewaster that would rival cable television, if it weren't for the fact that it's also pretty useful.

Fun For Everyone

It's always fun to find new sites, pages, and videos on the internet.  StumbleUpon is one of the easiest ways to do this - just click the Stumble button.  This system relies on all of us, though, which is why it's important to keep thumbing-up the things that you like.  If you happen to be the first person to add something to StumbleUpon, then definitely take the time to appropriately tag & quickly review it - this will help keep stumbles relevant & make sure it's likely to be displayed for other stumblers.

There's a bit of a community within StumbleUpon which, I must admit, I haven't quite taken a lot of time to check out yet.  The idea is solid, though, and it's a bit like Last.fm in its methods for connecting people in that it compares the sites & topics that people Like and then rate your similarity.  This is a great way to find out about new music, so I'm sure the theory translates to finding new websites as well.

Useful For Your Own Site

Every time you post on your own site, you should take some quick steps to properly add it to StumbleUpon's collection.  Properly Like the new page by accurately tagging it, and adding a short review - the review can be as simple as copying & pasting text from the page into the review section.  This will make sure that it's available for others to stumble upon, and hopefully Like as well.

Additionally, you should extend StumbleUpon's hit-creating ability even further by using Su.pr links wherever you share links.  Su.pr will shorten URLs so that instead of passing along a mile-long link, you pass along a link that's nice and short and even kind of fun to read.  Su.pr also tracks how many times a link is clicked, so you can see how influential you've been (stat junkies - I've just re-ruined your life).

I'm not entirely sure if it's the case, but it does seem that links with high clickthrough rates within Su.pr are more likely to be displayed to people just stumbling around the internet as well.  This seems to mean that if you're consistently providing influential links that are getting a lot of clicks, then all of your links (yep, that includes your posts too!) will also earn more stumbles.  I'm pretty sure this is a small addition to the existing stumble 'authority' which simply displayes pages that other users thumbed-up more often those those that either haven't been thumbed-up or have been thumbed down.

Related posts:

1. Relevant Exploration Through Google Reader
2. Don’t Slouch At The Dinner Table
3. How To Use Neat Stuff

Google Reader has Like and Share features built in that let me do more than simply read posts.  The Like and Share features allow me to tell others about interesting things I find on the internet.  I use these two features quite a bit...

I think the Like feature is a bit of a dead-end organizational feature at the moment - whatever is Liked is categorized into an unshared pile of posts that are marked "Liked", and it's actually a bit useless on its own (at the moment anyway).  I use it anyway, though - partly because I'm a freak about Google products, partly because it can be a useful organizational tool to quickly access posts that I found most interesting, and partly because of the feature's potential (should Google decide to add to it).

So, if I really enjoy a post, I'll use the Like feature as well as the Share feature.  The Share feature categorizes the post into an RSS feed of its own that is shared based on certain settings.  I've got it configured so that everything I Share is open for anyone to read right here.  Plus, it's really easy for me, because I'm right there reading the post that I enjoy where I can also click a single button to share it (or click a single button & type some text if I want to comment on it as well).  The action of sharing becomes an almost passive action; being able to share right from where I'm reading without taking extra steps or going away from the reading page makes it easy and enjoyable.  (StumbleUpon does a great job at ease-of-use, as well, but I'll be talking more about that in other posts.)

I don't care for that direct Google Reader shared items feed, though.  It's all alone; it's another place; it's yet another neighborhood (more on the idea of Many Places At Once / Many Neighborhoods in another post).  So, yeah, sure, it's great for other Google Reader users, but what about the people on my blog, or the people on Twitter, or the people on FriendFeed?  I have to do a little setup work to get those things running smoothly...

If you haven't checked it out yet, go have a look at my Lifestream (essentially my own personal FriendFeed).  This is a collection of posts from nearly every online presence that I have, and it takes absolutely zero effort to produce.  Both FriendFeed and my Lifestream are automatically updated whenever I Share something from Google Reader, no more complicated than that.

The leftover part, however, is getting my shared Google Reader posts into Twitter.  For that, I use TwitterFeed which subscribes to my Google Reader Shared Items feed and automatically post Shares.  Since Twitter limits posts to 140 characters, TwitterFeed shortens the URL that's shared with bit.ly (but only because it doesn't support Su.pr) - but that's getting a bit ahead of myself, so I'll write more on URL shorteners and the great service that is Su.pr in other posts...

That brings it full circle - I can post directly to my Lifestream and Twitter simply by reading posts via Google Reader and clicking a single button for the things that interest me.  This is the easiest method that I've found to share interesting posts that are always relevant.

Related posts:

1. Relevant Exploration Through Google Reader
2. Contemplate Consuming The Internet
3. Stumbling Down The Information Superhighway