What do Japan’s earthquakes and tsunami, the royal wedding, and the passing of Steve Jobs have in common? They were all hugely popular topics on StumbleUpon in 2011. The link discovery website had quite a year — in October it reached 20 million users, December brought a complete site redesign, and it now averages 1.2 billion “stumbles” per month.
In the above infographic, you can see how much the popular events of 2011 influenced StumbleUpon’s activity. During the Super Bowl, there were 41 mobile stumbles per second. And after Steve Jobs passed away in October, StumbleUpon recorded a 199,500 percent increase for searches of “Steve Jobs.”
StumbleUpon rounded up the most popular, inspiring and adorable links from the approximately 14 billion stumbles the site saw this year. The resulting Best of StumbleUpon 2011 post is a three-page list that includes the top stumbles for men, women and mobile users. Below is sampling of the stumbles that made the list.
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Most inspiring
In the category of most inspiring, A dog’s seeing-eye dog is the winner with one million views. It’s a post about a blind Great Dane, and another Great Dane companion that has been acting as her seeing-eye dog for the past five years. Inspiring and adorable.
Most popular on tablets
Expectations vs. Reality is a round up of 16 pictures that show how things really don’t always go as planned. The single-column all-images post was a natural for tablets. It had more than two million views on StumbleUpon — a rare case when reality probably topped expectations.
Most stumbled video
Out of all the videos shared this year, Super Sprayer scored the most stumbles. At first the video doesn’t look like much; just an artist spray painting a sheet of paper. But as he sprays and smudges the paint, a stunning space scene with a planet and stars emerge. It may not be as viral as Rebecca Black’s Friday Video, but the painting definitely required more talent.
Most delicious
Chocolate cupcakes with flaming strawberries — need I say more? This unique recipe of chocolate cupcakes topped with flaming, alcohol-filled strawberries became the most delicious stumble of 2011 with one million views.
And lastly, most shared
Draw a Stickman is a simple game; you draw a stickman and watch what happens to it, adding input here and there. How did it get so many shares? Likely because it’s a fun way to kill a few minutes and has a nice message at the end.
