I’ve written about Stumbleupon in the past because it has driven so much traffic back to this site, but I mainly use my Stumbleupon page as an overflow for all of the funny stuff that I can’t seem to work into my blog. It’s so easy to use that it has become one of my most frequently used social networks. Back in August, StumbleUpon announced that they’d be making changes to the way their friend system works, and it looks like the new system is finally in place. Curious about some of the changes? Well, let’s check them out.

No More 200 Friend Limit

Most people will be really happy about this because they can have more friends, but I have mixed feelings. I regularly bumped off the limit, and would have to make room for new stumblers by weeding out inactive stumblers or those who no longer focused on content that I was interested in. The constant revision was a pain, but it made sure that I got the most relevant content for me. Removing the limit certainly creates less work, but it also removes the reminder to let go of stumblers who have moved on to other topics.

How Similar Are You?

Normally, when someone visits my StumbleUpon page, I go through a few of their pages to see if they stumble the same geeky humor that I’m into. If I laugh a couple of times, I find a place for them on my friends list. StumbleUpon will now save me some of the legwork by calculating exactly how similar users are in the form of a percentage score.

The feature not only gives me a single number to gauge how similar my stumbles are to someone else, but it shows what stumble categories we have in common. If the score is relatively accurate and is used as a guide and not as a hard rule, this could save me from looking through pages and pages of stumbles that ultimately have no relevance to what I like.

Friends and Subscribers Are Now Different

StumbleUpon wanted to separate out the social networking portion of the site from the content subscription portion, so now when you follow someone, you are no longer a “fan” of them, but a “subscriber” to their stumbles. If you know them personally, you also have the option of adding them as a friend.

Separating the content from the people allows me to keep connected to good people who stumble topics that I have absolutely no interest in, but I have to ask whether a system that is so easy to use needs another layer of complexity. When should someone go from being a subscriber to being a friend? Is there some sort of criteria for that jump? And why do they have to be notified of my intention to be their friend and wait for confirmation? It seems to add a FaceSpace level of complexity to the whole process that doesn’t need to be there. I mean, do I really know the 400 people on my friends list? I probably haven’t even met one of them, so are they friends? Are they just subscribers? Should there be an acquaintance category?

I sort of liked the old idea that you’re only as good as your last stumble and that I had a bunch of “fans”. Don’t get me wrong: I like subscribers, but having “fans” was sort of like being a rock star without all the practice and smelly leather pants. With this new differentiation between what you do and who you are, I’m concerned that people are going to figure out that I’m just some nerd who has some funny stumbles and not the rock star that I make myself out to be.

What do you think? Do you like the new system or do you have mixed feelings about it? Let me know in the comments.

Posted in Blogging