Over the last couple of months, Yahoo Buzz has slowly built up its features, seemingly setting its sights on top player Digg. Likewise, StumbleUpon has also upped the ante, adding new features to further court the growing social browsing market. While Yahoo Buzz may not yet be "Digg"-able, will it trip over StumbleUpon? Let's take a look!
First Impressions
Quick glances at the splash pages show big difference on focus.
Yahoo Buzz is definitely a news-oriented site. The topics resemble those you'd find in a newspaper, with Entertainment, Sci/Tech and Politics being the default categories. Clicking on "More" also gives you access to Business, Health, Lifestyle and more. It's also easy to browse the "Up & Coming" news stories.
StumbleUpon's splash page can be a little overwhelming--too many topics across the menu bar and way too many images. Not really sure where to start.
Sorting based on interest doesn't really clear the clutter.
Although sorting on list view cleans it up a little, StumbleUpon's overload is just too much to handle. This round goes to Yahoo Buzz.
Shareability
More and more news sites are incorporating the Yahoo Buzz and Stumble chicklets for easy sharing. But what happens if the site doesn't have integrated sharing?
From the Yahoo Buzz splash page, you'll need to scroll down the page to find the "Submit a Story" button. Yeah, you have to go back to the Buzz page and copy and paste the link. The original web toolbar, the Yahoo Toolbar, does link back to the Buzz Page, but it doesn't include a "Submit" option. LAME!
StumbleUpon, on the other hand, has a fully-integrated Stumble bar. The bar allows you to review sites, tag them, share with friends or look at other reviews of the site. Translation: Uninterrupted browsing!
Submitting to each is pretty easy. Both offer similar forms: Title, review/summary, category, etc. StumbleUpon stands out here by offering more than five hundred categories, as well as tagging.
By The Numbers
According to company spokespeople, Yahoo Buzz saw 7.7 million unique visitors to StumbleUpon's 6.3 million unique visitors in October 2008. Based on traffic alone, Yahoo could be considered the winner--but don't judge too quickly. These are social sharing sites. Looking at the number of stories or sites submitted tells us a different story.
In October 2008, Yahoo Buzz averaged roughly 20,000 stories submitted per day. Even though it has one million users less than Yahoo, StumbleUpon's community shared roughly 35,000 per day in October. This landslide in sharing is a testament to StumbleUpon's easy-to-use toolbar. With more than half a million more submissions per month, Stumbleupon is the true winner in this category!
Final Thoughts
Overall, we prefer the look and feel of Yahoo Buzz. Its clean design and easy-access menus make it easy to find news stories. By narrowly defining the types of stories and defaulting to Entertainment, Tech and Politics, Yahoo Buzz is definitely in the running to appeal to a mainstream audience. Plus, with Yahoo finally linking its properties to create a social network, there is no need to create another profile.
That said, StumbleUpon's encyclopedia of topics and highly engaged community make it a great place to discover new sites that might appeal to niche interests. If you have a personal blog, add StumbleUpon bookmarking chicklets. Because the community is based on a narrower-scope of interests, you are more likely to attract its active members.
Put simply: Yahoo Buzz is like Target and StumbleUpon is your local boutique. You might go to Target to get the larger items, but you'll always end up at a boutique if you really want that hard-to-find item.
Which do you prefer and why? Let us know in the comments!