I've been trying a few different social bookmarking options on my blog and have settled on one I really like, AddThis.
Initially I went with the basics that were part of BlogEngine.NET--text links for saving to del.icio.us and digging it. But since I've started trying out some of the other social bookmarking networks besides del.icio.us, like Twitter, StumbleUpon, DesignFloat, Technorati, etc., I wanted to have more options for people browsing the site.
Like any good web developer, I started surfing all of my favorite blogs for inspriation, specifically looking at which social networks they provide links to for each post. There was a pretty wide variety and what I kept coming back to was that it really should be the reader's preference, not the blogger's.
AddToAny
I found AddToAny and it seemed like exactly what I wanted. It provided a preset list of a bunch of different networks that seemed pretty configurable but the best part was it gave me lots of options but didn't force me to take up much real estate. Its web site listed several pretty big names of sites that were using it and I liked the idea of consistency for usability. The code was fairly simple to install so I tried it out for a few days.
Overall I liked AddToAny, but I started noticing that it wouldn't always respect the configurations I told it to use. It would show more default options than I set it to, it would show different default options than I set, etc. This was annoying but what really made me look elsewhere was when I sent a link around to people at my office asking them to check out the new blog theme I created. Several of them emailed back with, "Looks great! But you have a JavaScript error." It wasn't in my code, and it technically wasn't in AddToAny's code either, as it turns out. Our office's web filter was blocking something AddToAny was using behind-the-scenes to pull content, particularly Digg Services. It was trying to render the web filter's message and icon but couldn't do so because of the way the pop up window works on the tool. AddToAny's integration also didn't allow me to wrap any sort of error catching around when it is displayed, so I was stuck.
Doing It Manually
I kept looking and found a few sites that listed how to integrate various social bookmarking networks yourself, particularly a post on Michael Gray's blog. It looked easy enough and then I'd have full control over it. But I had just spent a lot of my spare time developing the theme and then I didn't have the consistency aspect.
AddThis
Then I found AddThis. It looks almost identical to AddToAny but actually has a little cleaner interface (which you know I love clean interfaces) and had most of the major networks (not as many, but all the important ones and AddToAny really had too many networks). It, too, has a built-in email option as well as an add to favorites for whatever browser the reader is using. AddThis is used by a lot of major web sites as well and I think is actually a little more widespread. It claims on its homepage to be the #1 bookmarking and sharing service. It has free tracking services so you can tell which networks are the most popular for your site. It also doesn't pull in content from any of the social bookmarking networks or have any particular "featured" networks that get special treatment.
That's what I like about AddThis. But what I love about AddThis is that it does just what it says it does. You tell it to display social bookmark networks X, Y and Z: that's what it displays, plain and simple. It also has some other nifty advantages over AddToAny like the ability to delay the hover effect and to not display the "more" networks option if you wanted. Their web site has great information on customizing it, and their responses on their forum appear friendly, helpful, and genuinely happy to accommodate you.
I've designed a custom button, configured the script, and integrated it into the site. It's running smoothly and thus far I'm extremely pleased with it.
What Networks Do You Use?
I set the defaults to be networks that I use or am at least familiar with, but I'm interested to know who really uses what these days. Please comment and let me know your favorite social bookmarker(s) and what makes them different than the rest - maybe I'll discover a new, cool tool and possibly even add it as one of the defaults.
