Why I Use AddThis

At the bottom of nearly every post I write for any site I own (including this one, unless something’s broken), there are three buttons. A “retweet” button for posting to Twitter, a “Like” button for Liking and sharing something on Facebook, and a button called “Save and Share.”

All three of those buttons, but particularly the Save and Share, are from a company called AddThis. Go ahead, hover your mouse over that button now, and see what happens.

What happens is AWESOME. There are hundreds of sites that you can save and share content to with AddThis, and with a single click you’ll be taken to the right place to share and save the page you’re on.

But what’s really cool is a little feature for you, the reader. AddThis learns what individual people like (without you needing an account, it’s all based on cookies), and then presents every visitor with their own, customized menu filled with the apps they want to use.

Let’s say person A tends to share content via Twitter and Facebook, and save it using Instapaper and Evernote. Person B uses Delicious, Flickr, Identica and Friendfeed. So person A goes and finds Evernote once – every other time, Evernote will be on the little menu that pops up when you roll over it. Person B won’t see Evernote, because they don’t use it – they’ll get Delicious instead.

It works across users, and across sites – for any site that uses AddThis, you’ll have a sharing and saving menu that is personalized just for you. It’s simple, low-footprint, and an excellent way to let every user use the services they want. You’ll also get a different menu on your phone than you would at your computer, customized especially for mobile saving and sharing.

I love it, and wanted to make sure you all know so you can make use of AddThis on this site, and any other site with AddThis integrated. Have a site of your own? I can’t recommend AddThis enough.