Tools for Spreading the Word

I’m talking about the buttons that read ’save to delicious’ or ‘digg this’ or ’stumble this’

People who don’t frequently tweet or save to delicious won’t start because of a huge button on your website. The ones that do, already have their own tools and MO for doing so.

The services that don’t provide cool bookmarklets or API’s or tools are the ones that benefit from those buttons. People appreciate the time saved, but are those services really worth the real estate their buttons take up? I mean, have you ever used Fark?

Why not make your site cleaner? Those buttons are almost always hideous, save for some very few, but very cool, designs. Plus, they steal attention from your own call to action buttons. Like ‘comment’ or ‘buy’

People who don’t use twitter or facebook or digg or delicious or what have you are simply nauseated by the constant ‘Tweet This’ call out they see on sites. Wouldn’t you be?