"Add This" makes sharing content on social networks a snap

I found this article in the New York Times particularly interesting. I noticed that after connecting my Flickr account to Twitter and Facebook, that each time I posted an image to Flickr tagged with my special "snaptweet" tag to flag it for Twitter and Facebook, I was getting a lot more views within just a couple of days than I would normally get if I relied strictly on Flickr users' sporadic browsing. I found the same to be true for blog posts that were trumpeted over Twitter and Facebook. I have used other websites "share" options like YouTube and NY Times but assumed adding that functionality to my own blog posts (so posts found on a Google or Yahoo search could be shared with the researchers friends and colleagues) would be more complicated than I wanted to tackle.

But the NYT article mentioned a service called "Add This" so I checked it out and it made the whole process pretty painless! They provide the code to add a share widget to either a website or a host of other content management environments including Blogger. I use Blogger so I copied the Blogger template code and opened my Blogger template and pasted it in right where it said to do so. At first I couldn't find the right line of code but the key is to be sure to click on the "Expand Widget Templates" checkbox just above the window displaying the HTML code, then you see all of the code not just abbreviated sections.

In the last century, traditional media organizations hustled to get their product in front of the chatty elites; news magazines, for example, hand-delivered copies over the weekend to politicians and to other media. In the age of Twitter and Facebook, anyone can become a chatty elite, the social director of his or her own private admiration society. The hand-delivered copy has morphed into a Web article’s “share to Facebook” button.

Underscoring the trend, social networks are now an important source of traffic to many sites, in some cases challenging search engines as the top source of new visitors. For example, the leading referrer to PerezHilton.com, a popular gossip site, is Facebook. Nearly 15 percent of the gossip site’s visitors come from the social network, according to Compete.com, a tracking firm. Google ranks second, driving about 9 percent of visitors. - Share the Moment and Spread The Wealth by Brad Stone, NY Times

Why Twitter?

A couple of times this week I have encountered references to a new "social community" called Twitter. I see it is even on the board for discussion at the Educause ELI conference in San Antonio in January. So I decided I better go up and see what all the fuss is about.

Perhaps I'm not seeing the big picture here, but it looks like Twitter is designed for those people who must give everyone around them a blow by blow account of their life whether we're interested or not. It reminds me of people with cell phones stuck to their ears in restaurants and grocery stores describing the latest produce to anyone in their calling circle that will listen.

Twitter says its like a mini-blog (posts are limited to 140 characters) but looking at the statements being shared by users of Twitter, I'd have to say I've got better things to do with my time than try to plow through all that drivel looking for something that I may find interesting or useful. Maybe people who have scanners to monitor police and emergency services communications would love it. I see the LA Fire Department posts their response calls to a Twitter account.

I went up and read the official Twitter blog to try to identify the element that would make their service useful or compelling and I'm still at a loss for grasping the potential of their idea. Furthermore, I notice that they attracted venture capital but for the life of me I don't know how they could make a "venture capital level" of ROI with no discernible business model.

I must not be alone in my assessment of Twitter's potential. The Wall Street Journal wrote, "These social-networking services elicit mixed feelings in the technology-savvy people who have been their early adopters. Fans say they are a good way to keep in touch with busy friends. But some users are starting to feel 'too' connected, as they grapple with check-in messages at odd hours, higher cellphone bills and the need to tell acquaintances to stop announcing what they're having for dinner."^[3]