Social Bookmarking Submission URLs

A recent project I worked on required that I implement 8-10 “social bookmarking” links. You know the cryptic little links or icons you see on many sites that say “share this on [random site here]?” Share this on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Digg, Myspace, etc. Nowadays they’re on everyone’s blog and they’re making their way onto “normal” web sites as well. For good reason too because they’re an excellent way for you to share a web page or article that you find interesting with your social network of choice. Check out the little “Share and Enjoy” section at the bottom of this post… that’s what I’m talking about!

Submission URLs

These social bookmarking links are powered by “submission URLs.” This is simply a web address (URL) specific to the social bookmarking web site, to which you can “submit” or “share” your article or web page. Each site has it’s own URL that they’ve setup. Programmers like me just make sure that on every page of the site, the little icon for sharing this page on Facebook (or whatever site I choose) links to Facebook properly using the submission URL. So in short, Jane Doe visits my site, finds an incredibly interesting article and wants to share it with her family who all have Facebook accounts. She clicks on my “Share this on Facebook” icon and she’s redirected to the Facebook site (by the submission URL) and after she logs in, uses Facebook’s interface for posting my article to her profile. Done!

So what’s the problem?

Well there are literally HUNDREDS of social bookmarking sites out there. Everyday more are created while others are gaining in popularity. Well that’s a lot of submission URLs for me to find if I want to make social bookmarking available on my site! Would you believe that it took me and a coworker several HOURS to find a resource that simply compiled a bunch of submission URLs?! And we’re two able-bodied, internet-savvy people. I was shocked at how difficult it was to track down submission URLs for this project. And going directly to each social bookmarking site wasn’t much help! It seems as though this information is buried deeply in help documentation. Why??