I used them on my blog (http://chronicle.dsgndvlp.com) and on my homepage (http://www.dsgndvlp.com) when i was doing freelance work. I've still got the .ai file and can send over to you/put on the server. I've also got an entire folder of various social network buttons that I swiped from other sites (all open source licenses). Let me know.

Thx Daniel, but were they effective? Did your site spread anymore as a result?

Eh. Effective in what way? Number of connections/fans on other networks? Or traffic coming back from those networks?

I didn't really put much effort into it. In fact I was starting to: made a facebook page, started a Virb skin, and was about to go all out on it. But then Barbarian came along and rocked my world so I had to abandon my freelance efforts. So I never got far enough to measure if they would be effective or not.

For the most part, I think they are more effective for a brand if the intention is for that brand to be perceived as:
1) hip to what is going on in the web
2) showing customers that they identify with them
3) showing customers that they are open to feedback by sending them to other places where they can help interact with the brand

Sorry, I don't think I was clear in the post, I mean those "bookmark this" buttons like you'll see on so many blogs or on the New York Times. It will have a delicious button, Digg button, Facebook button (for posted items), etc.

I'm basically wondering if they're actually an effective way to get people to share your content or not ...

If you are talking more about actual bookmarking via these types of buttons. There's been some talk about that a lot over the summer. Generally what I have found is that folks that will bookmark something with del.icio.us, digg, or stumbleupon, generally do it with the bookmark in their browser, not the button on the page.

Sharethis did an interesting blog post (http://blog.sharethis.com/?p=92) that disclosed some of their measurements on usage. It's no surprise to me that the highest usage of Sharethis is actually to send emails rather than to use it to bookmark to social bookmarking sites.

Awesome, thanks Daniel. Have you seen any research on the "folks that will bookmark something with del.icio.us, digg, or stumbleupon, generally do it with the bookmark in their browser, not the button on the page" ... That's my suspicion too, just want to see some numbers.

I think they're useless and betray a possible misunderstanding of the savvy user. Make no mistake - icons of other sites as buttons are intended only for users who both know what those icons represent and what the button does. Those users don't need buttons to remind them that, if they want to, they can send a link to someone.

URIs are the currency of the Web. Everyone who might spread something already knows how to spread it. Anyone who knows what a Digg icon or Facebook icon does (or, rather, anyone who can infer) already has their IM client open, their email client open. They have bookmarklets for Delicious and Digg and Facebook already.

In my opinion, it comes across as desperate pandering to folks who either have no idea what those icons are all about (and thus are alienated and/or confused) or to folks who don't need you or want you to prod them to "spread" something.

If the resource at the end of your URI is worth spreading, and you follow good resource management (distinct URIs, support for alternate representations, etc), the right folks will pass it on.

If you need those buttons, you NEED those buttons.

My hunch is, they're ineffective when compared to their cost - the tacky desperation and cluttered design.

Cynically yours,
toby

I think they're awful. They used to be cute little options for on-the-edge designers who wanted to acknowledge the possibilities of "social networking". Nowadays I've seen up to 15 of these little icons in a row at the bottom of EACH post in a blog, as if it's some way to signify that your blog is connected to the "cloud" and everyone is spreading it. They are indeed tacky and provide nothing but clutter. Overall I've always thought they appeal to a very small audience and only confuse the rest.

Smattering pages with tons of those buttons is bad mojo...

Most people wont use the majority of the buttons you provide, or more likely wont use ANY of them.

Its basically an anti-pattern that emerged from the whole social media traffic = "digg this button" misconception.

The most interesting solution to this problem is captured in a blog post by Nial kennedy. It talks about sniffing browser history to see what kinds of services a visitor has used and then only displays the relevent buttons for their services... http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2008/02/browser-history-sniff.html

To Toby's point is that even necessary or worth the effort?

Something I have noticed and I am sure others have too.... if an article or a video gets a lot of momentum on a sharing site like digg... people slap the digg button on it.... but only after it catches fire. Again, to Toby's point things don't catch fire because you put every kind of "share" button possible on your content objects.

I’m also very much in Toby’s camp on this issue. I’ve never found myself taking advantage of any of those submit quick-links or email-a-friend features simply because it dehumanizes the transaction of information. Along the lines of Toby’s thoughts that people who spread information tend to have their email/IM clients open, I almost always default to one of those two things. My theory is that, if I find something interesting and I know someone who would also find it beneficial, I’ll tell them “personally” with an email or IM from me, not some third party tool. This of course, only covers the person-to-person transactions of information.

When it comes to submitting something to one of the countless social sites, I again, tend to agree that people will use other resources. My guess is that the 2% of hardcore users on Digg, submitting the majority of the articles, aren’t even reading the entire article much less looking for a tiny little “Submit this” button at the bottom of the page.

The amount of choices within those buttons are getting out of control too. A quick look at the options on the ShareThis button is insane:

Reddit, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Google Bookmarks, Yahoo Bookmarks, Windows Live, Slashdot, Mixx, Furl, Current, Yahoo! My Web, Propeller, FriendFeed, Newsvine, Xanga, Blinklist, ma.gnolia, Mister Wong, N4G, Blogmarks, Faves, Simpy, Meneame, Yigg, Oknotizie.alice.it, Fresqui, Diigo, Care2, Funp, Kirtsy, Hugg, Sphinn.

Then again, in the eyes of the content creators, even one submission about their witty article on Heelarious (the disturbing high heels for babies) to Kirtsy may just be justification enough to keep those icons alive. In fact, I wouldn’t even be surprised if they had never even heard of Kirsty until that sole submission linked back to them and they had to Google it, just like I did seconds ago, to find out what it was.

I think they're pretty awful too, but I won't deny throwing them into some comps once in a while to show that a site's a bit more "community" and "social" oriented. ;)

Wow, universal disgust ... I don't know that I've ever seen so many people agree on something in blog comments. Someone must like them/find them effective, right? Anyone? Helloooo?

I fall into the near-universal dislike camp. My problem with them is that they provide no functional value to users, so I can't imagine why they would need to be there. I look at my own experiences with social media sites as a guide.

If someone is using delicious or stumbleupon, it is pretty much a guarantee that they have a browser plugin that is much easier than using your non-standard and awkward button.

Digg & other voting sites are less clear, but it occurs to me that either you want to vote for it on Digg -- so you saw it on Digg and vote there -- or you want to submit it to Digg -- in which case you're probably the kind of person who has Digg open in another window anyway.

The point is ... I only provide 4 quick options for my users on an article-level:
- leave a comment
- email the article to a friend (without having to switch to "email mode")
- print the article in a friendly format
- subscribe for more articles

In the UX war between infinite options and careful guidance, I err for the latter.

Lately, I've found myself using the FB button on NYTimes and YouTube -because those sites have limited their selections to a few (i.e. they don't include every social networking site ever created).

I would guess that when used judiciously as in NYTimes.com they work to a certain extent. There are plenty of folks that share articles through Facebook (for example) that would not necessarily have a bookmarklet or plugin installed. Given the wide demographics of social media usage, I would think that a limited implementation (like NYTimes.com) shows the average user that as a content publisher you actively encourage the sharing of your content and aren't going to send them nasty letters or change the URL a few hours/days/weeks after they share it.

How many people share with a quicklink vs a URL? You'd need data from lots of major publishers to get a good view on that. Does if do anything for the brand? I'd argue yes, but don't have the numbers to back that up.

I love them. But the lack of a unified format sucks. For my blog, it would be ideal to have a site where I can choose which buttons I want, and then insert it. This site would make it easy for any bookmarking site to add their buttons to the database, so it wouldn't keep anyone out and allow users to select whatever buttons they want for their own site. I don't think there is a way of getting past the lack of a unified format, because if I hate del.icio.us, then I shouldn't be forced to make it easy for my posts to end up on del.icio.us.

I feel a bit differently. These bookmarks or social content aggregators are helping us user as 'internet hawks' to scour the web a little more efficiently. Instead of relying on search spiders to aggregate content, google and yahoo are now using the tags pulled from users within their algorithms (I believe Yahoo bought delicious in 2005, but I'm not sure if they have successfully made this transition yet).

Also, I tend to use these for work to pull historic content (inspiration for new projects, interesting articles for future research projects, tag good sites I stumble upon from blogs and will never remember the url for...). If I didnt have the option of bookmarking - I would be a complete mess and reliant on standard search.

The fact that most site include these 5X5 pixel buttons make my life a bit easier. Peer to peer content syndication at its best. I dont care what NYTimes posts, but when my friends post something i'm more willing to listen.

I resisted using them on my blog for a long time Noah, since I don't ever use them myself and funny enough just installed them about a week or so ago. (Keep meaning to go back into the code and eliminate the ones I've never heard of and just leave things like delicious, digg, etc.)

I gather they're a pretty neutral element for most people who I think see them as just another thing to skip over on the bottom of the post.

Though, fwiw, my Ad Age Power 150 rating has gone up 2 raw score points since I added the buttons, and since that number is based on the number of people who link your posts to social bookmarking sites, it would seem they really do have value for some people, your readers on here notwithstanding.

As for media sites, I find that I've used the NY Times "post to Facebook" feature a decent number of times recently. And that it always strikes me as odd/illogical that the Wall Street Journal site allows you to post to MySpace but not Facebook.

On a related note, I've always wondered by someplace like is.gd or tiny.url hasn't made an effort to partner with the Times and other media sites to provide easily remembered short urls for their articles. Would seem to make a lot of sense.