ShareThis, not that
// April 9th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Fun, Technology
Ahhh, the joys of Facebook. You know, you get all those friends from High School and college wanting to reconnect. You message back and forth a few times and then get busy with life again. Well, I got reconnected with Tim Schigel last fall. He and I were fraternity brothers at Case Western. We used to play in a band we founded called Skydiver because we actually went skydiving during out first couple weeks of college and couldn’t really think of a better name. We played a lot of Rush classics and other party tunes of the day. We opened for cover bands in the Cleveland area. Good times… Good times… 20 years ago.
Tim would go on to create ShareThis, a really cool sharing app that actually has some real usefulness outside of just being a fashionable widget. Me… I would go on to… hmmm… nothing quite so glamorous.
Tim calls me every now and again and tells me that he just met so and so at ESPN or MTV or House of Blues and that they are implementing the ShareThis widget on their site. I saw the widget appear on FoxNews.com one day and realized he’d made it to the big time. Tim is one of those humble guys not just chasing a dream but grabbing it by the horns. He and his family had a nice write up in Family Circle about the trials of running a huge multi-million dollar internet company while trying to keep family a priority. He does both well and because of that Tim is one of my heroes.
So what is ShareThis anyway and why should you care share? ShareThis is more than just an easy way to get social media content from one place to the next. And if there is one thing that is certain: we are bombarded and overwhelmed with managing the information we see on any given day. ShareThis is like a platform for managing this information you find during your travels online. If you’ve seen the ShareThis icon on a website, that site owner has recognized the benefit to its readers by making the article sharing process a one-click event. In the past, you’d see an article you like and you’d have to copy the URL, paste it into an email, find the person or persons you’d like to send to, and then send it on its way. Or you find something useful for yourself and you’d like to save it to read later. You create a word document or notepad for “useful links” or just bookmark it. If you are like me the bookmarks on the browser can get large and unorganized quickly. Or suppose you want to Twitter something useful to your tribe. There’s a better way.
ShareThis comes in and saves the day by making these multiple keystrokes and clicks a thing of the past. First, you create a free account. Next you get the widget for your blog (easy with Wordpress). Next you get the free add-on for your browser of choice. Then you go have some fun with it. With Wordpress, it just shows up below each post by default. The admin area provides customization of location and color themes. A visitor clicks and sees the following:
As you can see, there are a host of options available to you. From facebook to twitter to email to texting. And it takes your page info and passes it along automatically when you Send or Post.
One of the neatest features I really like is the ShareBox. I’m constantly putting articles in there that I want to read later. These can be shared or deleted directly from within your sharebox after you’ve had a chance to review them.
Curious which pages are being shared the most on your site. ShareThis provides reporting capabilities of sharing activity on a per page basis.
So, there you have it. I’m leaving out a whole lot more of what it is capable of. So why not give it a try. Just click ShareThis below and see how much fun sharing can be.
My buddy Tim who founded 
