What happened? Did the little blog, whose mantra is thus, suddenly become twice as interesting overnight? Since its content is updated infrequently - once weekly at best - I doubted it. I had a fairly good idea as to the source of this extra traffic, and I was right. StumbleUpon, my fair weather friend, had returned.

This is not a huge increase in traffic by any means - when a really big StumbleUpon day happens, the chart looks a lot different. However, the interesting thing is not the fact that StumbleUpon happened, it's that it keeps coming back to the same page and yet that page's reviews never change.

While Google Images has a long-term love affair going with the site in question, StumbleUpon visits about once every few months, and always to the same URL. Funnily enough, Google Images prefers the pictures on this particular page as well. The really strange thing about the on-again-off-again relationship that StumbleUpon has with this piece of content is that the reviews don't change and, as far as I can tell, few people are particularly impressed with the page. According to its reviews, only three people like the site and it has only been written about twice. And yet, every once in a while, StumbleUpon is back outside, throwing stones at the window and asking us out.

I know that the StumbleUpon reviews pages are supposedly far from accurate: the service has always been a bit cute with its numbers and I've never seen a review page that has accurately portrayed how much traffic the site in question will receive. However, it amuses and surprises me that StumbleUpon does not work like most other social media sites, which will not "re-promote" content after it has been popular. So far, StumbleUpon has revisited this page four times.

It's great for us - writers, publishers, linkbaiters, and SEOs. The do-or-die aspect of Digg is negated by the notion that not only is StumbleUpon popularity and traffic not a ticking clock, but that even once the first wave of SU traffic dies away, it may return again. I am not entirely sure what sets off the subsequent influxes of stumbles (I assume it is a tag or a thumbs-up from a prominent account), but there is one theme in common with each wave of Stumble traffic: every time it comes back, it brings with it more visitors.

However, my analysis of StumbleUpon traffic has been really interesting for more than just the fact that it can't leave my one page alone. A common idea I've heard from the Internet marketing community - and one that I used to spread - is that StumbleUpon is the everyman's social media site. "Regular" people - people who don't get FAIL or Rick Rolls and who squint at me when I go out in this tee-shirt - were thought to use StumbleUpon, at least in higher volumes than they do any other social media mainstay.

I can tell you from my little blog's stat counter that this really isn't as true we we'd like to believe. This morning, I went through the stats and analysed my StumbleUpon audience in comparison to my regular visitors.

Firstly, the graph of browsers is telling. I check this graph relatively often and rarely does Firefox 2.0.0 come out on top. In fact, the last time Firefox eclipsed Internet Explorer 7 was the last time StumbleUpon showered us with affection. Needless to say, the MSIE 5.5 users (yes, omg wtf, etc) were not Stumblers.

That search traffic, visitors referred from non-StumbleUpon sites and people accessing the site directly or via bookmark aren't using Firefox is plainly obvious. Normally, Internet Explorers 6 and 7 battle it out for supremacy. I broke the last two days' worth of visitors down by browser further, showing Stumblers next to their "regular" peers.