StumbleUpon, now back under the control of the original owners after being ‘let-go’ by eBay, has rolled-out some significant updates. The homepage features more content, the entire site has been re-designed and a new emphasis is being put on the user’s friend network. The stories you see and submit are now heavily focused within a user’s network (verses the entire SU network). What this means is that stories you see are derived from your friend network, instead of the entire SU network. Same goes with the stories you submit. Gone are the days of instant traffic off a carefully-placed SU submission… unless you have thousands of friends.

Luckily, the SU focused friend network feature update is in beta. If you don’t like it, leave feedback. The owners have historically been very receptive to user input.

StumbleUpon vs Digg vs Twitter vs Tumblr (Unique Visitors Chart)