For the past two months we’ve been working on a new version based on the awesome feedback since the launch of our Smart Menus. We (Pat, actually!) told many of you that we’d have this release ready by the end of October, and some of you got an early demo of the development version.
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:
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
It’s here: a Mobile Safari version of Add to Any’s Share/Save tool for iPhone and iPod Touch!
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.
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.
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!
Today we’ve added Yahoo! Buzz to our Share/Save widget.
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!