It is now common knowledge among librarians and those interested in YA reading habits that teens are not only reading books in today's world, as the internet has given a new form of reading, and in some cases the sites that are viewed or read are done through social networking sites such as Digg or Stumbleupon. Do to this, a closer look at what these networks can offer teens is needed.
Website: www.stumbleupon.com
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Around since 2001 StumbleUpon is a social networking site that allows users to ‘stumble’ through websites, blogs, news articles, games, web comics and anything else that can be found online that are connected to their interests. A free application added to ones browser, the user when signing up checks off their interest areas from a long list of topics. Once done, the user can click the Stumble! button on their browser and they are taken to a site based on their interests. Users can ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ the site, and over time the application learns and refines the websites based on this. Users can also have friends lists, recommending and sharing sites with one another, and can add new sites to stumble by giving it a small review. Having this application allows users to discover sites that were unknown to them, as well as bringing more traffic to personal sites not found through a google search. Although a social and fun application, more academic sites can be stumbled upon if one lists it as an area of interest. Very addicting, once a user adds this application they will find themselves saying ‘just one more stumble’ far into the night.
Website: www.digg.com
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Digg.com is a site that anyone can visit, seeing a list of the latest and highest rated websites that users have ‘digged’. Websites are separated into different categories for easy browsing. User voting deems where on the main page, or separate category pages the websites will be found and although the voting can carry some bias the site would appeal to YA’s for this very reason especially as many of areas are about teen cultures and news but also some science and business categories which could be browsed for school or personal interest. The website allows visitors become as involved as they would want, either just browsing the sites or voting and discovering new sites. The popularity of Digg, and other sites like it are visible as many websites will have a ‘digg’ button, hoping that visitors will click it and possibly bring the site up in popularity on dig.com. Although a fun site to browse, it has less spontaneity then StumbleUpon as one has to visit the site instead of hitting a button on the browser.
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