Show HN: Sharingbuttons.io – Fast and easy social media sharing buttons(sharingbuttons.io)
sharingbuttons.io
Show HN: Sharingbuttons.io – Fast and easy social media sharing buttons
http://sharingbuttons.io
97 comments
People who like this also might like shariff, privacy enabled social media buttons by the german tech publisher heise: https://github.com/heiseonline/shariff, https://heiseonline.github.io/shariff/.
Shariff is great, we use it in all our own and client websites. Works just fine.
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That's awesome! I have my malware protection* block social share buttons. A cool plugin would replace them with something like Shariff.
* ad-blocker
* ad-blocker
Privacy Badger [0] does this, among other things. I use it in combination with uBlock [1] and Decentraleyes [2], which replaces many CDN-hosted resources (eg. Google Fonts) with locally cached copies.
[0] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
[2] https://github.com/Synzvato/decentraleyes
[0] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
[1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
[2] https://github.com/Synzvato/decentraleyes
While this is a good suggestion, shouldn't this have its own thread? This is "Show HN" - a chance to startup owners to shine. Such a post steals their momentum...
No hard feelings, sharingbuttons isn't a startup by a long shot, just a fun personal open source project! People should have choices :+1:
Sure, just talking overall. I see this trend starting on HN recently. I have seen few times when cool projects got hijacked even by owners of different, similar startups. Thus the comment. Good job btw.
In my opinion it depends. Here we are talking about really the same idea, and shariff is something I already used. It also is a few steps further, it has a backend to get vote counters and plugins for several frameworks, like Serendipity, Drupal and Wordpress (now, that is something which might have stolen the spotlight, and I opted to not mention that here).
But no, to your question, I don't think it is a new phenomenon or unwanted to mention related projects in comments. That's why I did not even consider that it might hurt op, thanks for chiming in. But yes, shariff should probably have its own thread, the ones I found are old and did get no attention. I'll re-submit it.
But no, to your question, I don't think it is a new phenomenon or unwanted to mention related projects in comments. That's why I did not even consider that it might hurt op, thanks for chiming in. But yes, shariff should probably have its own thread, the ones I found are old and did get no attention. I'll re-submit it.
I submitted it to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12216263
It's nice, but people love to see the number of current likes.
For one of my customers, I created a Facebook like area [0](visible on the bottom of the site) that shows the amount of likes. All required data is retrieved server-side and cached; to not expose end-users to Facebook tracking while still providing images and like count.
[0]: https://www.bakkerij-emmerix.be/be
It uses the user-supplied images by facebook (square and banner) with the option to supply a larger-version than Facebook returns.
It's not rocket science, but it makes the site load a lot faster and does not expose the user to tracking.
For one of my customers, I created a Facebook like area [0](visible on the bottom of the site) that shows the amount of likes. All required data is retrieved server-side and cached; to not expose end-users to Facebook tracking while still providing images and like count.
[0]: https://www.bakkerij-emmerix.be/be
It uses the user-supplied images by facebook (square and banner) with the option to supply a larger-version than Facebook returns.
It's not rocket science, but it makes the site load a lot faster and does not expose the user to tracking.
> and does not expose the user to tracking.
Thanks for taking the time. :)
Thanks for taking the time. :)
Out of curiosity, how do you do the caching? How long is the cache valid for? Is it only triggered by a user request, or is it updated by a cron job or similar?
Website was written in C# (ASP.NET MVC); the data is cached in-memory on the webserver.
I have caching limit (Like Count = 3 minutes, Page info (name, images, etc.) = 1 hour).
Every time one of the resources is requested from the webserver; it's served from memory (initial retrieval on site start); and on access, it's checked how old the data is. If the data's older than the threshold, it's refreshed async and displayed on the next request.
I have caching limit (Like Count = 3 minutes, Page info (name, images, etc.) = 1 hour).
Every time one of the resources is requested from the webserver; it's served from memory (initial retrieval on site start); and on access, it's checked how old the data is. If the data's older than the threshold, it's refreshed async and displayed on the next request.
Does anyone know if there's any data on how freauently people use sharing buttons? Do sharing buttons actually significantly increase sharing?
I don't remember ever clicking on a sharing button, except by accident, I always just copy paste the url, seems way more convenient.
Do you guys use them?
//In any case - awesome project!
I don't remember ever clicking on a sharing button, except by accident, I always just copy paste the url, seems way more convenient.
Do you guys use them?
//In any case - awesome project!
In my experience, it's less than 0.5% on average, and in some cases, far less. However, I've found you can get better than average share rates by bluntly asking users to do so - with a lightbox after they've scrolled to the bottom of the page (indicating they've actually read the entire article), for instance. You can do the same if a user watches a video to the end, etc. You're not allowed to directly incentivize Facebook sharing, however you're free to strongly encourage it.
As with many things in life, it turns out that you won't get what you want unless you ask for it.
As with many things in life, it turns out that you won't get what you want unless you ask for it.
Lightboxes for this are terrible. Please don't do it.
I'm sure lightboxes drive up shares per view, but I wonder if there's data on how they impact views in the long-term.
This is cynical, and arguably (probably) a net negative, but in nearly all cases, intrusive stuff like lightboxes, modals, and exit intent stuff works. It increases time on site, conversions, whatever metric you want to measure.
This is the part I don't understand
> It increases time on site,
My interpretation is that they increases time-on-site by pushing away people that aren't committed enough to wade through bloatware... and I don't understand how that works in the long-run.
Is it more profitable to push away customers so you get high-quality data on the core customers, and increasingly targeted advertising? How does that work out in the long-run when you need to replace lost customers?
> It increases time on site,
My interpretation is that they increases time-on-site by pushing away people that aren't committed enough to wade through bloatware... and I don't understand how that works in the long-run.
Is it more profitable to push away customers so you get high-quality data on the core customers, and increasingly targeted advertising? How does that work out in the long-run when you need to replace lost customers?
More shares per view translate to more views, period. While sites certainly need to balance user experience with their need to grow, aggressively asking for shares works, and sites that do it will always do better traffic-wise than those that don't. I realize that ultra-white hat developers don't like this fact, and many would like to see it cause some sort of detrimental effect on the sites that do it. But unless the implementation is egregiously bad, most users simply don't care.
I've learned to intentionally stop all videos before they finish so that you don't get another unrelated video auto-started, you don't get some weird ad or other overlay that makes scrubbing back in the video impossible, and so you don't have to see a bunch of "subscribe to my other thing and here's a video preview of it that makes no sense without sound!"
I'm always afraid that the link will be borked somehow (for example: a link that opens the app or requests an app install -- it happens on the facebooks, man).
I always copy/paste the URL when I want to share a website. That's what the URL is meant for. Heck, it's easier to copy the URL (using the keyboard) than it is to use the mouse to click on some button.
Sharing buttons are a nuisance more than anything. at best, I'd say they're a tool to enable spying on users and should be categorically blocked (as standard uBlock₀ filter rules let you do with a single click).
Sharing buttons are a nuisance more than anything. at best, I'd say they're a tool to enable spying on users and should be categorically blocked (as standard uBlock₀ filter rules let you do with a single click).
> Sharing buttons are a nuisance more than anything.
They're actually most often used as a quick way for people to support a site. I've seen it at every company I've worked for - they're easily the most common way that our site is distributed socially.
They're actually most often used as a quick way for people to support a site. I've seen it at every company I've worked for - they're easily the most common way that our site is distributed socially.
It's easier to copy the URL, but it's still faster to share by clicking than it is to do by copying the URL, navigating to the site you want to share to, pasting in the URL, adding some descriptive text, and clicking the share button.
Besides, sharing buttons which are just links (as in this post) don't aren't really that intrusive.
Besides, sharing buttons which are just links (as in this post) don't aren't really that intrusive.
I can't believe Amazon doesn't have a "copy link" button. I guess they don't want too many "amzn.to" links floating around, but I hate to need to use bitly or an extension just to get the compressed link.
I think the ideal solution should be very similar to Android's sharing setup: One unified share button that can be sent to different apps or copied to clipboard. http://www.androidpolice.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nexu...
I think the ideal solution should be very similar to Android's sharing setup: One unified share button that can be sent to different apps or copied to clipboard. http://www.androidpolice.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/nexu...
I don't understand what you mean by this. Do you mean a button that grabs the current URL you're at? Do other websites have this?
I'm not challenging you, I genuinely don't understand what you're talking about.
I'm not challenging you, I genuinely don't understand what you're talking about.
A button to generate a shortened link. For example, when you click share on YouTube, you get a youtu.be link.
Why do you still need shortened links? For text messages, aesthetics, or ease of analog communication? Twitter, previously the main use case, no longer counts link length in tweets.
While I don't think the URL shortening matters too much, there's still another important attribute of using these shortlinks that manifests itself on youtube: They also omit irrelevant metadata like URL parameters that were specific to your session or the way you arrived at the site.
For example, youtube will often include extra garbage parameters for stuff like playlists - which the youtu.be shorturls omit, making them perfect for sharing videos.
For example, youtube will often include extra garbage parameters for stuff like playlists - which the youtu.be shorturls omit, making them perfect for sharing videos.
These parameters are not apparent to those with whom you share the shortlink, but I'd wager that the site stores a mapping from the shortlink to the session in which it was generated. Which may be OK for you; I don't know.
the youtu.be link contains nothing but the video's identifier, so I don't see how they could store a mapping
Is the identifier unique? Does it have to be? Without switching to a different browser on a different IP addr and finding the same video again through a different search, would you even know?
Yes, the format is youtu.be/<video id> where <video id> matches the one in the long URL (youtube.com/watch?v=<video id>&extra patameters...) and is unique to the video.
Basically aesthetics. Especially with amazon, if I'm on mobile and copy a link (https://www.amazon.com/Haribo-Gummi-Candy-Gold-Bears-5-Pound...), it's got a bunch of excess weight. I can just cut it down to https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000EVOSE4/ without any loss of data. Alternatively, you can use bit.ly or an extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/native-url-shorten...) to shorten it to http://amzn.to/2aTrW7v. However, this is a pain on mobile. The share buttons should just work. I think they might do it this way for increased analytics or referral links, however they should be able to do that with bit.ly too.
This feature already exists and you don't need a button for it. It's part of HTML metadata, specifically the <link rel="shortlink"> tag.
You could either provide some sort of button to your browser to place this into the clipboard, or use an extension like pentadactyl to add a keyboard shortcut for it. (It's simply “y” by default - so copying URLs works like yanking in vim)
You could either provide some sort of button to your browser to place this into the clipboard, or use an extension like pentadactyl to add a keyboard shortcut for it. (It's simply “y” by default - so copying URLs works like yanking in vim)
From the context, it sounds like getting a product URL from within the native Android app.
As mentioned, they do have a shortened link option. Also, where do you need shortened links, now that Twitter has excluded them from character counts (and used their own link shortener before then)? Facebook truncates URLs, etc.
They do. Click "Share" when you're on a product page. The shortened link is right there.
I'd personally never use them since they only annoy me on other websites, but clients (or even designers sometimes… ugh) often want them because "We're Web 2.0". That's kinda why sharingbuttons.io exists!
The UK Gov has done great work about this: https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2014/02/20/gov-uk-social-sha...
I think about this often, and honestly, they don't seem to be worth it; I think if we got rid of all the share/like/tweet buttons the web would be pretty much the same (except with maybe less clutter).
People absolutely use them. Moving them around on the page by itself has a significant impact on sharing, as does adding more buttons.
This is fantastic, thanks for sharing it!
On another note, I'm a huge fan of small utilities like this. Sometimes cruising HN it's easy to get it in my head that a project isn't worth doing unless it's a scalable VC business ready to submit to YC, or a community-supported FOSS. It's nice to see a little web utility doing its thing online.
On another note, I'm a huge fan of small utilities like this. Sometimes cruising HN it's easy to get it in my head that a project isn't worth doing unless it's a scalable VC business ready to submit to YC, or a community-supported FOSS. It's nice to see a little web utility doing its thing online.
Thanks for the love! Glad you like it!
Nice work - I just put them onto ind.ie' list of Stopgaps - https://forum.ind.ie/t/a-nice-project-for-no-tracking-share-....
A while ago I made a Share Buttons WP plugin with no tracking as well - can be found here https://github.com/privacore/sharebuttons-wp
A while ago I made a Share Buttons WP plugin with no tracking as well - can be found here https://github.com/privacore/sharebuttons-wp
This is an amazing idea, and I will be implementing this today. Great job. I haven't seen any rendering problems across browsers either.
The only change I would make is to remove the "Share on Twitter" text that is included with each large button on the website example. It's pretty much implied for the end user once they see the colors of the buttons and the icons.
For example, I shortened "Share on Twitter" to just "Twitter".
The only change I would make is to remove the "Share on Twitter" text that is included with each large button on the website example. It's pretty much implied for the end user once they see the colors of the buttons and the icons.
For example, I shortened "Share on Twitter" to just "Twitter".
Along this point, I feel the 'medium' preset's removal of the logos is odd as it's not typically done. I'd rather see the medium preset be '[logo] Twitter' instead.
Those actually sound like a brilliant idea! Would you mind submitting an issue so I don't forget it? (or submit a PR?) https://github.com/mxstbr/sharingbuttons.io
I submitted an issue mentioning both ideas. In fact, medium & large can be combined into one layout called "normal".
I would love it if I could just opt out of sharing buttons altogether (without resorting to browser extensions).
Nice work, there's just one thing, I'd change "share on email" to "share via email".
This is perfect. I wish I had known about this last week. I was volunteering for an event that my work place sponsored -- It was a "girls who code" thing, and I was helping them with HTML and they wanted something like this. All the ones I found didn't work out of the box.
Oh WOW, actually embedding the icons as plain SVG. Color me impressed.
Thanks! _blush_
Another great option is Open Share: http://openshare.social
Acording to Gov.uk, which are actually quite good at it, these buttons don't really make sense:
https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2014/02/20/gov-uk-social-sha...
Edit: the website is really awesome though, I love how it looks/work.
https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2014/02/20/gov-uk-social-sha...
Edit: the website is really awesome though, I love how it looks/work.
Yes, but that's a governmental website, which probably has a much lower sharing rate because most of their pages are not that interesting.
Totally agree, but it's the only datapoint I have, and the good thing is that they probably have a really wide demographic being the gov website and all. I will search for more.
Exactly. They are literally the most boring pages on the Internet.
Totally disagree, for the kind of content they are the best ones. They are even better than all blogs and tutorial about those topics that I found. Try to find the same info about ANY other country
These are really nice. If anyone's using Ghost and wants to see them in the wild, take a look at something like https://wail.es/opendaws/
Oooh awesome!
Anybody else reading this who's using them, would love to see your sites!
Anybody else reading this who's using them, would love to see your sites!
I put them on https://www.lastchallenge.com. Nice work!
BTW, the SSL cert is invalid on https://www.pgpasc.org/
Ah, sigh. I don't have the time to maintain that anymore, I'm afraid, I haven't even found the time to properly shut it down yet…
Hey Max! Awesome work with this one—will definitely try to use it.
Nice! Would be awesome if you could add Hacker News :)
I didn't know HN has a sharing link! Would you mind submitting an issue with the link and I'll see if I can get to it? (or you submit a PR?) https://github.com/mxstbr/sharing
Will do!
Just FYI: Your website needs a "doesn't work without JS" message, since right now it looks pretty lol with JS off.
You're right, I should add that! PR maybe? https://github.com/mxstbr/sharing
Sorry, i'm more of a backend dude. But i think you won't need more than `<noscript>Message here.</noscript>`
It would be nice to have a variant of the site that didn't have javascript or analytics.... like the buttons ;)
That sounds like a the perfect use case for a small API… Sharing Links as a Service?!
Haha, I was actually under the impression that you made this in response to AddThis [1]. They basically do "sharing links as a service", plus analytics. It's not such a bad idea, since they were recently bought by Oracle for $175 million.
[1] http://www.addthis.com/
[1] http://www.addthis.com/
Damn son, maybe this IS a startup then. I revert my earlier comment![0]
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212911
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212911
Part of me screams "No, external service dependency is worse than javascript".
The other part says "Absolutely !".
Not sure how to respond.
The other part says "Absolutely !".
Not sure how to respond.
I have those blocked everywhere.
I think these ones will not be blocked, because they don't use any JS, and there's nothing to identify them as sharing buttons. Even the icons are embedded as raw SVG tags.
I hate these buttons on news sites, they slow down page loads considerably
That's the point...these ones don't.
can someone make this a WP plugin? huge adoption potential -;)
Help us out on making that happen! https://github.com/mxstbr/sharingbuttons.io/issues/38
why does mailto: open in a new window?
mailto links should be handled by your OS's default mail client. I just realized mine opens Chrome even though I clicked it from Firefox and Thunderbird should be my mail client anyway.
yes, they should be. and they are (Mail opens) - but my point is the link opens in a new window which is blank, then brings up the Mail
I added an issue for you: https://github.com/mxstbr/sharingbuttons.io/issues/32
very cool, would be nice to support more icons including this site ;-)
This is amazing, thanks!
Funny how a website specialising in no JavaScript doesn't work without JavaScript.
Nice work! Now if you can just convince the world to use it.
I forget what it was, but I had the same idea while reading something on HN about a month ago, however, since I don't have an account on any of those services, I didn't bother trying to implement it. I was also a little pessimistic that some services wouldn't even have simple links like that so they could protect their interest in tracking, but it looks like they all have something. The only downside I can think of is that the URLs might disappear and a site owner would need to update their site to get sharing working again (assuming a new link is available). But I can't imagine that happening too often and it's not like anyone ever died because share buttons didn't work for a minute.
I forget what it was, but I had the same idea while reading something on HN about a month ago, however, since I don't have an account on any of those services, I didn't bother trying to implement it. I was also a little pessimistic that some services wouldn't even have simple links like that so they could protect their interest in tracking, but it looks like they all have something. The only downside I can think of is that the URLs might disappear and a site owner would need to update their site to get sharing working again (assuming a new link is available). But I can't imagine that happening too often and it's not like anyone ever died because share buttons didn't work for a minute.
My idea was an app to send pictures to people, and having the app make it disappear after 10 seconds. Didn't bother implementing it though ;)