Over 50 THOUSAND downloads of the Share/Save/Bookmark plugin for WordPress!

Since the official directory opened over a year and a half ago, the Share/Save/Bookmark plugin, as well as the Subscribe widget plugin for feeds, have been a key focus of our time and development.  Everyone seems to know that WordPress rules, and to give outsiders insight, what you’re reading now was written in WordPress.

We are proud to say that Add to Any has maintained two of the best integrated WordPress plugins available. Hands down, the Share/Save button is the most integrated all-inclusive sharing plugin.  50,000 downloads later, and with whatever the crazy WordPress install count is, there’s a good chance you already know that!

A lot of time, effort, and e-mail went into this feat, and it certainly helps when you have the backing of one of the best communities on the Internet.  I have to say, 9/10 times the best feedback comes from WordPress publishers and fellow WordPress developers. You people rock, with a great big shout out to James Huff, Steven Sashen of the Meditation Truth blog, Tri Nguyen, Michael Cohen (performance guru), and every publisher and developer that’s ever given feedback — thank you!

The plugins themselves are over 2 years old, and neither has reached version 1.0.  Why so Googley?  We’re doing our best to ensure that 1.0 is clean as can be,  failsafe to install, and optimized to minimize its footprint. That said: We want your help!

Right now Add to Any is looking for WordPress-specific feedback more than ever.  Please tell us how the plugins can be better.  Whether that means taking a magnifying class to the code, localizing in a language you know (thank you, Juan!  Thank you, Dupola!), or suggesting a new option or feature — we appreciate every note.

Thanks again to every WordPress publisher out there that uses Add to Any, and thank you WordPress!

Today is Election Day in the United States (as if those of you in the U.S. do not already know that), meaning we missed our rough target date, but the slight delay was well worth it!

The new features completely rock, and I can confidently say that you (and your visitors) are going to love this release.

Briefly, here’s what’s new:

• Visual update (tabs!)
• Digg counts (real-time!)
• Delicious counts (real-time!)
• E-mail made faster/easier
• Prioritize services
• In-widget browser bookmarking instructions (for non-IE browsers)
• More publisher options

Visual refresh

To be perfectly honest, this screenshot doesn’t convey the aesthetic awesomeness of the update.  To fully appreciate the new look of the widget, and that transparent border, take it for a test drive…  try the homepage, or your closest AddToAny widget!

Digg & Delicious counts

The real-time number of diggs appears to the right of the Digg link, and the real-time number of saves on Delicious appears to the right of the Delicious link.  What’s more, if you hover over the Digg link, you can see the exact number of diggs and number of comments on the Digg story page.

E-mail

Based on sharing activity, we know that web users still use e-mail as their primary means of sharing.  (And of course, everyone has an e-mail address!)  So we thought about how we could make sharing via e-mail even easier.

We decided it was crucial to provide direct links to the major web-based e-mail services’ Compose E-mail page, with the shared link information all pre-filled, ready to send.  Users of Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Live Hotmail, and AOL Mail will love this.

Alternatively, we still offer a link to our relatively new e-mailer to quickly share using any other e-mail address (or without having to login to one of the above services).

In addition, there’s an option for desktop programs (using the age-old trusty mailto: link).  Same deal, the e-mail is ready to send and share with the link and link title helpfully filled out.

Prioritize services

Many of you have asked about this, and were we hesitant.  We hesitated because our goal is to provide a consistent sharing and saving experience for all users across the web; wherever there’s an AddToAny menu, a user should be able to share and save using any service.

a2a_prioritize is our answer to your requests.  Using this JavaScript variable, you choose services you want prioritized within the menu.  This means that in the default menu, you can choose which services appear at the top of the menu, and the order in which they appear.

In regards to smartly-sorted services, the services you prioritize will also be prioritized within the personalized sorting of services.  We’ll be refining this over the next few weeks.

Browser bookmarking

As before, a visitor using Internet Explorer will see “Add to Favorites” as opposed to a “Bookmark” button, but maybe you remember that ugly alert dialog box?  Well it’s been replaced!  We replaced it with in-widget bookmarking instructions tailored to the user’s browser.

Quick deviated lesson about Firefox: The JavaScript-assisted bookmarking you may have seen elsewhere isn’t what the user wants — those bookmarks, by default, target users’ Firefox sidebar — definitely not what the user wants!

Quick lesson about Opera: They’ve quelled that old pseudo-click hack!

Other changes

• Faster loading
• Smart Menus are smarter
  • The default order of services (by popularity) is preserved to increase the effectiveness of visitor sharing activity
• No JavaScript errors for speed-demons
  • In other words, onmouseover/onmouseout/onclick have been removed from the button code and moved into the main JS
  • You might want to grab the new code to take advantage of this change
  • Official WordPress update soon!
• New checkbox to toggle the menu on-mouse-over or on-click available in More Options on the button generator page
  • Old method will still work fine, but replace the code if you have a chance

Open Share Icon

This one warrants a dedicated post!  Simply put, we love the Open Share Icon, and we’re delighted to help it become the standard share icon.

To install the Share/Save bookmarklet on your iPhone or iPod Touch, there are two possible methods.  The first is easy, the second is a little tougher.

Easy method (if you sync your browser’s bookmarks):

If you already sync your brower’s bookmarks with your Apple device using iTunes, then this method is for you.  Drag this link to your bookmark toolbar (if you lack a toolbar, add it to your Favorites or Bookmarks). Then sync your iPhone or iPod touch with iTunes.

Harder method:

Brace yourself.  Then follow these instructions. We agree that this is a weird way to have to install the bookmarklet, but you’ll be glad you did it once you’re sharing and saving from your sleek device.

Do enjoy, and certainly let us know what you think!

We usually don’t post about the services we add (if we did, trust me, it’d be a bit much!), but this is something we’re pretty excited about.  Yahoo! Buzz is a user-driven service that lets users decide what’s popular on the Web.  To explain the significance of Buzz in a nutshell, it can push your content, if popular enough, to the front page of Yahoo!, driving millions of viewers to your site.

Launched back in February, Yahoo!’s Buzz up! button was exclusive to select publishers, but today you too can leverage the server-squeezing, comment-producing power from Yahoo! Buzz.  Check out your resident Share/Save button, or pick one up!

All links in the drop-down menus will open in new windows/tabs.

So… yay?  Sure, this will bring tears of joy to most, namely publishers; novice users: we’re still maybe a little bit worried for you.

Why did we shun new windows/tabs?

Easy: to help keep the browsing experience consistent.  Fact is, most modern browsers (sans Safari w/ status bar) give no insight as to when a standard link is going to open in a new window or tab… until you click it. (Surprise!)  Since most links open in the same window, this can throw/piss people off. So, we felt it was our responsibility to let users decide for themselves whether or not service links open in a new window/tab (via context menu or keyboard shortcut).

Why are we embracing new windows/tabs now?

It was a losing battle and the practice has become very commonplace. (See Delicious and My Yahoo! links elsewhere around the Web.) It became so accepted that not only publishers were asking us to switch to use target=”_blank” (geek for ‘open new tab or window’) but users as well. So we caved. But we caved in tune to some wishful thinking, and the thought that the responsibility should be shifted:

Browser makers: let users know when a link is going to open in a new window or tab. Perhaps indicate that a link is targeted to open in a new window or tab through the mouse pointer and/or the status bar.

In the meantime, we’ll remain optimistic that future browser releases will follow Safari’s lead.

Why so serious?

Seriously, The Dark Night* was awesome. Go see it.

*Bittersweet link irony

The Menu & Embedded Objects

• A NEW LOOK!  (We’d post a screenshot, but thought better of it this time: just give one of the buttons a try!)
• Embedded objects are only hidden when they intersect with the drop-down (or “jump-up”, depending on orientation!)
  • Whether you revere or abhor this functionality, it’s configurable, it’s up to you

The Finder (”Find service(s)…”)

• Retains user queries after they’ve clicked out of the find box, allowing instant modifications to the displayed services
• As power users know, when the menu is open, they can just type to find services, without having to click the “Find service(s)…” input box
  • You’ll be happy to know that the find box now listens for the spacebar so you can add to additional services more swiftly
• If users jump between your Share/Save and Subscribe widgets in one session, the “Find service(s)” text no longer interferes with a query

The Ol’ Down-Arrow (internally known as the ’show off’ button)

• Includes a tool-tip to explain what it does
• After clicking the down-arrow, it’s replaced with an up-arrow that resets the menu
  • No more out-of-place “Add to Any” link (wasn’t that awkward?)

The Icons

• They’re better looking, they’re brighter
  • The compression quality induced artifacts so we now use a better compression method
• Shortly after we began using icons (the universal small kind), we started using CSS sprites to minimize the number of HTTP requests the menu had to make to completely load.  It’s been a boon for performance; everyone wins
• A good number of services had their icons updated
  • NowPublic’s Marc (Design Director) and Michael (CTO) proactively sent us their new logo icon, a part of their brilliant new design
  • Sweden’s Pusha also scored us an icon and URI scheme
  • As usual, many other new services, like Ping.fm, were added to Add to Any

Analytics

• Fixed a bug that prevented some content from getting properly tracked in Google Analtyics

Many more updates to come!

It’s not uncommon that Frank uses PostSecret to help raise awareness and calls to action about important issues.  This week, PostSecret is trying to raise awareness and financial support for Hopeline (1.800.SUICIDE), an independent hotline for suicide prevention.

The site typically uses Add to Any’s Share/Save widget to help visitors spread PostSecret.com, but this week Frank’s using the button uniquely.  In the first known use of our widget as a tool for spreading a link that’s outside the scope of a popular website, Frank has positioned the widget to help spread Hopeline’s awareness and fundraising campaign.

To see and use the Share/Save widget, as it’s being put to great use this week, see the bottom of PostSecret.

Watch the video about Hopeline’s campaign below, featuring Frank:

Today we’re announcing an awesome new change to our Share/Save and Subscribe widgets.

The service your visitors use are placed first within Add to Any widgets!

We’re not talking services you guess your visitors use, but much better: the services they really visit and use.

Let’s see it in action.

Go to one of your pages that includes an Add to Any widget, or see one on our blog. Mouse over one of the buttons, and you’ll see that the first services in the menu are the services you visit. (Like a form of black magic!) If you start visiting other services, those services will automatically appear in the menu as well. The same goes for everyone else, so each visitor is more inclined to add your content to the service(s) they actually use.

To figure out which services you visit, an Add to Any widget evaluates the massive list of services in its drop-down menu.  If your browser indicates that you’ve been to a service, that service is automatically bumped to the top of the menu.  Some black magic, eh? It’s about time someone put it to good use.

In fact, we’ve been putting the smarter menus to use on a few participating websites since last year. We analyzed stats to ensure that the new functionality was viable, useful, and an overall improvement (indeed!). We then polished, released, and gave a heads up to some people (Allen, Kristen, Josh, and others).

We’re now glad to say that it’s even easier for your visitors to share, save and subscribe to your content using the services they already use.

Yet another advantage of our original move to include every relevant service in our Share/Save and Subscribe widgets!

Firefox 3 has a bug that caused Add to Any’s drop-down menus to vanish when you move the mouse rapidly over the menu.

Luckily, we found a workaround to this problem and have updated the drop-down menus.

For those interested, the bug is exclusive to Firefox 3 up until at least yesterday’s nightly release. Thanks to PD for reporting the bug to us and Mozilla.

Chances are pretty good that you’re already using Google Analytics. And if that’s the case, just place a Bookmark or Subscribe button on your page, and you got stats. Yep, automatically. No configuration on your part. Any page that includes the Google Analytics code, and also includes Add to Any code, will receive statistics — no cost, of course.

Many of you asked how to access the stats in Google Analytics, so today we’re linking you to a simple-to-follow guide on how to get stats on your Add to Any widgets.

Here’s the Add to Any & Google Analytics Guide. Go get ‘em, tiger.