I have certain people that I follow, and I always check their stuff first. Does it mean that I stumble EVERYTHING that they submit? …uh No, but it does mean that I try to stumble or plug or whatever things that are of interest to me. And I hope my friends and followers would do the same.

I also try and expand my circle or community and find new blogs all the time with stuff that interests me, and I try to help them out too!

How StumbleUpon works for marketers….

Of course no one WOULD know about such a group because it would be shut down and every URL the group was associated with banned from all the social sites.

This is why no one is made to vote for anything – no one CAN be made to vote for anything that they don’t like.

But having a group of people who ban together to read each other’s stuff before anyone else’s is nothing more than what Oprah does with her book club.

She’s NEVER been accused of “gaming” the New York Times best seller list even though she’s responsible for putting hundreds of books on it single handedly with her reading club.

However, I believe the main issue here should be how biased the votes are within these groups of Friends.

The fact that I’m interested in a certain subject or even liked one of my friend’s articles doesn’t mean I’ll like everything he/she publishes.

If every member of the group ONLY gives a “positive vote” to his/her friends’ stuff when he/she truly feels like it, then I think it’s ok. Otherwise, I think it’s still a subtle way to game the system.

Then again, I may be wrong. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.