StumbleUpon updated its iPad and iPhone apps on Wednesday with several new features that show the company is taking a page from social networks like Twitter and Facebook in an effort to provide new content discovery options.
Previously, StumbleUpon users could only search for content on the app by interest categories, or browse personalized content based on their "likes." Now, StumbleUpon has added two new options. The first is an activity stream that shows what articles your connections have liked on the platform. The other feature is called Trending, which highlights popular content in the StumbleUpon community.
As part of the update, the app asks for access to the user's location. The company isn't using this location data to recommend content yet, according to a StumbleUpon representative, but it is customizing content based on the device, so stumbling on an iPhone might produce different types of content than on an iPad.
User profiles on the iOS app have been updated as well and now include a colored spectrum at the top, called StumbleDNA, which highlights the categories where each user's "likes" are from. In this way, users can get a visual of their tastes.
StumbleUpon has also tweaked the app to make it easier for mobile users to stumble through articles on the go. Users can go through content by scrolling left to right rather than having to tap the "stumble" button each time.
StumbleUpon started out as a desktop product in 2001, but figuring out mobile is becoming increasingly important for the company. Mobile is the fastest growing method of stumbling, and accounts for 25% of all stumbles.