Library clips

How often do you send and receive emails containing cool web links, funny video’s, presentations, etc….

Sharing links; first it was by composing an email, then it was from an email feature in your RSS Reader (but then you can’t share links you find outside the reader), then it was from your social bookmarks (but the del.icio.us links for you only works if all parties use del.icio.us).

There are various ways to share links via; IM, surf and chat tools, a blog post footer, but this post is more about an easier way to send links to your contacts, and of late the browser seems to be the most obvious choice.
As a matter of fact I think lots of services should incorporate contacts plug-in, so when ever I come across a link I can easily send it to my contacts, whether I’m inside my RSS Reader, email, IM, social network, etc…

Of late we have seen lots of services and social networks pop-up that are designed to share links with friends within and outside of the network. The idea here is more on the ease of sharing links, eg. dragging them to an avatar.

As mentioned I want to be able access my contacts list and contact groups from my browser and drag in the link/s.
This is the idea of ShareThis (formerly share2me), it will harvest your contacts list from various services you use (or add them manually), and recipients can receive the links via email, IM, or a notification within the network itself, and even as messages in other social networks.
Now if you add your own profile from the available social networks or add your own email, you can remind yourself of stuff, why not add posting to social bookmarks, publishing to your blog, etc…

It doesn’t seem to have SMS notification, but how about Particls (formerly Touchstone) type of delivery choices like a pop up sticky note right there on your friends PC (I guess they would have to be registered with ShareThis for intimate delivery).

Only issue I have with ShareThis so far is that I can’t view my contacts list…they are using Plaxo for the contacts module (good partnership idea), so if I sign up I will be able to access my contacts. But regardless I still want a link to Plaxo within my profile or better still view my contacts within ShareThis.
Also when you share a webpage I’d like to choose from a drop down list of my contacts, as I can’t remember who I have in my contacts list…and of course contact groups would be great.

I’d like to plug-in the ShareThis button into my RSS Reader, just as you can into the footer of my blog posts, not to be confused with ShareThis wordpress plugin.

NOTE: not sure if you can share links with other ShareThis users, it seems you can’t as it really isn’t a social network yet, where you can add friends or see their profiles, or leave comments to a particular item and your profile in general…although it seems I can leave comments to one of my own items.

And of course you get an archive of all these links you have shared, probably want to tag them or search them for future retrieval…hope this is coming soon.

As long as you can install the button on any PC, you will be able to share links…I can see ShareThis maturing into a ultra handy product, I feel it will become another regular tool into my everyday toolkit, and that’s rare that a tool sticks to being used everyday.

I posted on a similar idea for a ping social network, instead of sending an email or IM, it sends a new item in you contacts user space (notification could be by email , IM, etc…).
The difference is that you can ping them as you publish a blog post and as you comment in other blog posts, ie. when you hit send your blog post or comment is published and at the same time you have also pinged your contacts.

Here’s a list of recommended links services…ShareThis shines as it has the killer feature of various delivery methods and sending to contacts that aren’t registered with ShareThis.

Stumble Upon

The Coop

Hypeit (now Spokeo)

PluralList

Tubes

ShareThis

bzzster

yoono
[ADDED 31/05/07: Yoono is a download app that seems to have the same features as ShareThis, ie. send to contacts that aren’t registered with Yoono, different types of delivery, and even posting to your blog…see comment]

Tellfriends

Services more oriented to recommendation are Heeii and Blogrovr…me.dium, chatsum, others online and Reko recommend people. I guess most of the profile aggregators or lifestream type of services double up as expert locators that have people recommendation.

[ADDED 22/07/07: FeedEachOther has link sharing, as well as several lifestream services, such as ProfileFly and Comwat.]

[ADDED 30/07/07: Siphs]

[ADDED 21/09/07: Streamy : Social Network RSS Reader, lifestreams and attention groups]

[ADDED 21/09/07: Siphs : link blogging and sharing]

[ADDED 21/09/07: Google Shared Stuff and other common ways to share]