Here’s just a web-related anecdote from my blogging experience. Previously I ran a blog on portable video game systems such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, named Portabalooza. It was an okay blog, but a lot of the time I was just finding articles already found elsewhere and putting my personal spin on them. Sometimes I would write opinion articles, but overall I ran out of game-related topics to talk about. However, it did have certain posts that had original links or content which got the most visits. But I haven’t touched it for two months, so the blog’s as good as dead.

But the last thing I did was out of curiosity: I used StumbleUpon. Here’s when I at last discovered the effects of Stumbling. The first day had a surge of hits but nothing major. Then I stopped checking the site for over two weeks. Last week, though, I logged into my admin area here and out of curiosity went over to check on stats of my this site, and then picked Portabalooza. I received over 500 visits on several days, unheard of for that site, and it peaked at 952. Did people stay long? Nope, it was just hit and run traffic. However, StumbleUpon does have some power if you know how and when to use it. If Portabalooza was packed with original content, it would probably have gotten a new fanbase, and I might be forced to revive it again.

Now I wonder what would happen if I Stumbled it again, weeks later. Would it have the same effect, or would it be like the boy crying wolf another time? Portabalooza may be dead in a blogger’s terms, but I’m keeping it around for web traffic experiments. Regardless of how successful my sites become, having a “sandbox” site for playing around helps. It may not be a perfect model for how your real sites perform, but it is a great way to try, fall and learn from your mistakes before applying the strategies you have found.