Serendipitous Browsing: Stumbling through Wikipedia

While in the early years of the Web, searching for information and keeping in touch used to be the two main reasons for ’going online’, today we turn to the Web in many different situations, including when we look for entertainment to pass the time or relax. A popular tool to facilitate the users’ desire for entertainment is StumbleUpon, which allows users to “stumble” through the Web one (semi-random) page at a time. Interestingly to us, many StumbleUpon users appreciate being served Wikipedia articles, which are informative pieces of text that educate the reader about a particular concept. The leisure activity of stumbling can thus also incorporate a learning experience. Since life-long learning is an important characteristic of knowledge economies, it is crucial to understand the interplay between these two at first sight opposing forces. We hypothesize that a greater understanding of what makes certain Wikipedia articles more attractive to the serendipitously browsing user than others, will enable us to develop adaptations that expose a greater amount of Wikipedia articles to the leisure seeking user.