I’ve just installed StumbleUpon.com, a tool bar that lets your rate pages and see pages others like you have enjoyed. I gave it some minimal information about the subjects I’m interested in, and the very first page it recommended was Common Dreams, a site Jock Gill (technologist, activist and photographer extraordinaire) had recommended to me last night. Common Dreams’ tagline describes it well:

Breaing News and Views for the Progressive Community

Here are its headlines this morning:

Baghdad Warns That a US Strike Will Lead It To Hit Back at Israel…

Pelosi Vows to Back Bush if War Comes with Iraq…

‘Green Pope’ Warns of Worldwide Catastrophe Over New Gulf War…

Californian Women Strip for Peace…

Jimmy Carter Slams ‘Arrogant’ US Foreign Policy…

Big Write-In Vote for Massachusetts Anti-War Activist…

US May Punish Colombia Air Force…

The commentary looks lively also. So, so far StumbleUpon is one for one. I’ll write a better report on it after I’ve been using it for more than 5 minutes…

By the way, I only installed if after being personally assured by the service’s Garrett Camp that:

The only information we collect is the URL and associated rating when you click bad, good or great. The history of sites you have stumbled upon is also recorded, but only on the client so we don’t show you the same sites twice. Even though you can remain an anonymous user if you wish, you can enter you name and website on the “Your info” page so that you can bring traffic to your homepage. If you wind up the first rater for alot of good sites, a significant number of people will end up looking at your profile and visiting your website. Best of all, they will be people who like what you do, so its one of the best ways to get like-minded people reading your blog.

Categories: Uncategorized dw