I’m interested in the whole “social bookmarking” phenomena around the blogosphere – Simone said once that there are several link love languages – the click, the comment, the link, the email, and the discussion (in real life) – I’d add “the share”.
Which is like a link – but different.
You’ll notice that at the bottom of each post there’s a link to “share this” – on a number of sharing platforms. I haven’t decided which I like best – but they’re great for generating traffic.
I use Google Reader as my bookmarking platform of choice – having had dalliances with delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit. I like Google Reader because I use it to make my daily links posts. Pretty seemlessly.
I also like it because I can see things my actual friends are sharing right there in the browser window.
And I always feel pretty special when I score a “share”. Craig Schwarze is a much renowned (or at least widely read) Sydney Anglican blogger – every Christian I know who blogs subscribes to his blog or reads it regularly. It’s pretty good – he keeps on top of a wide range of issues and some of the comment threads there get comment counts that are the envy of even the die hard professionals. I must confess that I am trying to come up with the perfect recipe for having a post shared by Craig – links from his blog get almost as many hits as links from Facebook.
I’ve had 44 items shared by my friends (from my blog) – Google Reader lets me search that sort of thing, I haven’t kept a running tally – that would be a bit too narcissistic even for me.
But I’ve had a quick look through the items that have been shared and it’s hard to narrow down set criteria. I’ve had half serious posts and half trivial. Some of them have been regular features like t-shirts and videos, and a couple of the beginners guide to taking over the world made the list too. But sorry other bloggers – I am yet to narrow down the secret ingredient.