See the buttons on the right? I hate them. There are so many services out there now that use these kinds of buttons to spew stories on the rest of the internet that the best articles are shared to a point of redundancy. Articles permeate and mutate, and before you know it, you’ve bookmarked the same story four times through Instapaper.
Also, buttons look terrible. I’m not a great web designer, but I can tell you when I want to read an article, I don’t want to assaulted by icons all over the article. I don’t want to Digg, (Re)Tweet, Facebook, or Buzz (I can’t believe I said that) articles. If your content is good enough, I will find a way to share it. I’m not that incompetent a user that I don’t know how to post a link.
I presume the bigger services will never get rid of these types of buttons. They need their content to get out as much as possible to pull in those important advertising dollars, and throwing some buttons with easy ways to share and spread content are useful to them.
But for the rest of us, we need to make better content. We need to make sure each post showcases our very best ability, whether that is written, audio, or visual so people will want to share it. Because if your content sucks, what’s the point of even putting it online in the first place?
Anti-Social Media