As web sites, media options, leisure choices, and other clutter around us grows exponentially, one of the challenges of life is finding something worth paying attention to. Sure, you have Google and the like when you know what you’re looking for. You even have Amazon and other collaborative filtering systems to observe your purchase patterns and recommend additional things to buy.
But what about serendipity — that seemingly random happenstance that connects you with something worth seeing?
For that, there are sites like StumbleUpon, a collaborative site of users who like to discover and share cool things on the web. Essentially, StumbleUpon is a set of tools that allows anyone to flag web pages they like as they browse, and then share those pages with other users. When you want to stumble, you select the categories that interest you, and click a button to link to a random, well-ranked page in that category.
I’ll admit to a daily addiction to the tool, allowing myself a few clicks when I get something significant accomplished. The clicks are almost always worth the effort: like Scott Wade’s Dirty Car Art Gallery or Mr. Picassohead or these fun little foldable toys. I’ve even added “stumble it” links to each of my weblog entries, to see if it directs a few new readers to these conversations.
If only we could work such serendipity into the live arts experiences cluttering events calendars nationwide. Perhaps I could subscribe to a random series of arts tickets, mailed to me a week before a performance. Perhaps my local performing arts center could offer a discount “grab bag” of tickets to well-respected upcoming events. Perhaps I could pay a trusted friend to buy me an ecclectic bundle of events for the coming season.
Of course, the risk/reward ratio is different for a live event than for a simple web click. If StumbleUpon dissappoints me, I’ve only lost a few seconds rather than a whole evening and $50. But there must be a way to balance that risk and foster the joy of accidental rapture.
Brilliant!
Just stumbled upon a site that attempts to invert your browsing experience by removing the ‘click’
(http://www.dontclick.it/). Completely turns on its head the way in which you’re used to navigating a page.
It would indeed be a luxury to have a serendipitous engine of a similar nature for the live arts. Quite at a loss as to how to achieve something that, however…