4 ms·
I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs
- PaulHoule 5mo agoAmen! Plus those share buttons leak data with third party cookies and such, they're mostly a scam to skim user data from your web site.
- operatingthetan 5mo agoIt's sort of cargo-cult behavior to add them to non big corporate websites. Just like adding superfluous chat bots now.
- iLoveOncall 5mo ago0.2% can be an OK conversion rate for some things.
- llm_nerd 5mo agoIndeed, that seemed surprisingly high to me and kind of countered the argument.
- readthenotes1 5mo agoSounds about like the number of times I accidentally clicked the link
- 6510 5mo agoI also use it like that, last time it filled whatsapp with an entire story about the greatness of the company and the wonderfulness of the product. I tried to remove everything not part of the giant link made from tracking info which is done though an UI so annoying it seems like you are not suppose to. Overall it made a memorable experience worth not repeating. I'm writing this so that others don't have to repeat my mistake.
- dieselgate 5mo agoAt a previous job an "infinite scroll" experience was tested against many paginated pages and 0.2% is roughly the conversion rate of someone clicking through to the 4th or 5th page of results IIRC. They decided to not go true "infinite scoll" but rather add a "See More" button instead of pagination. Anyway just interesting data points for what "0.2% conversion" looked like in my experience.
- ndegruchy 5mo agoI've added a button that just triggers `navigator.share()`[1]. I know most users do the copy-paste dance, but I find this is a good middle ground. Adding functionality for my users, but not adding special social media share buttons. [1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/share https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/s...
- input_sh 5mo agoI thought about using navigator.share myself, but decided to go with the basic "Copy URL" button instead, as navigator.share is pretty useless on desktops and not supported across browsers on phones either (Android's Webview being the big one for my use case).
- rickstanley 5mo agoWhy not both? A small button with "Copy link" text to, well, copy the current URL and another that calls "native" share, if available. I don't find it to be too many options, but I would guess that perhaps "Copy link" would have more clicks than `navigator.share`.
- imoverclocked 5mo agoYou could switch between them depending on the browser. Desktop users are more likely to want an URL anyway, IMHO. FWIW: iOS has a "copy" option in the share popup.
- siriusfeynman 5mo agoOh is this what that is, I saw a few sites use it recently but for whatever reason on my desktop pc (windows 10) the only options I have are copilot, another copilot (for some reason), one-note and discord, which claims to also be a copy to clipboard option but it doesn't work. So in the end for sites that don't show the raw string I have no way to copy something.
- yieldcrv 5mo agonavigator.share is limited and the share intent breaks UX, adding more clicks to a funnel than I want I leave it as an option for the users that really want it though, but surface other things like just the copy icon to put something directly on the clipboard the articles best stats are from 2012, I’m sorry to inform that was 14 years ago, people are even more acclimated to direct linking
- evilturnip 5mo agoMost people don't have an audience they would share it to if we're being honest. If there's a article/site I'd be interested in sharing, it might be to a slack channel or a text message, in which case I just copy/paste the URL.
- mgiampapa 5mo agoI use share buttons all the time on social platforms, and apps like Amazon that don't have any other way of deep linking. Lot's of people use apps that don't expose a link, share buttons are great and even better when they use standards like your OS's share functionality.
- catlikesshrimp 5mo agoThat is one of the reasons any publisher wants you to install yet another app in your phone. Be it fb, ig, goog, tk... Edit: Reddit :/
- Zak 5mo agoThe article is discussing "share on [Facebook,Twitter,etc...]" type buttons on websites, not share via [OS functionality or other native app] buttons inside native apps. That said, I'm curious as to why someone with enough technical sophistication to be posting on HN browses Amazon with a native mobile app instead of a web browser.
- subroutine 5mo agoYou prefer to browse amazon using a mobile web browser over the native Amazon app? Why?
- Zak 5mo agoI'll give the straight answer to what I think is a rhetorical question. Firefox for Android syncs with Firefox desktop so there's a shared history and I can easily send tabs from one to the other. It's also easy to copy proper URLs instead of shady shortlinks that often contain affiliate codes and trip spam filters. Finally, I don't want to give Amazon a foothold on my devices; the browser has a stronger sandbox than native apps do.
- 6510 5mo agoit was preinstalled on my phone
- 5mo ago
- raincole 5mo ago> The share buttons got clicked 14,078 times. That’s a 0.21% usage rate, which works out to about 1 in 476 visitors. In other words, people not only click share buttons, but do it quite often?
- AnthonyR 5mo agoYeah I find this article hilarious. Especially since maybe less than 1 in 10 visitors will actually want to share the article? So 1 in 476 is actually pretty decent usage.
- bluebarbet 5mo agoFor which the other 475 get saddled with a bunch of extraneous downloads and invasive tracking.
- vovavili 5mo agoThe cohort that is concerned about this almost certainly runs some sort of a blocker.
- FroshKiller 5mo agoThat's beside the point. I block plenty of things personally but am no less concerned about mass tracking.
- 9dev 5mo agoNo, that's beside the point. The vast majority of users do not care about this at all, while those that do care never see it due to their blockers. From the point of someone carelessly offering a convenience feature with tracking capabilities, this is a no-brainer.
- sebastiennight 5mo ago"The people who care enough about the quality of the water do tend to test it, and will refrain from drinking it if it's polluted. But the vast majority of people do not care enough to go through the hassle. So polluting that drinking water for our own interest is a no-brainer."
- dlcarrier 5mo agoSee the rest of this comment to learn what dlcarrier thought of the article! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48561332#:~:text=Of%20course%20no%20one%20wants%20to%20use%20a%20feature%20that%20creates%20a%20huge%20link%20and%20throws%20in%20a%20bunch%20of%20disingenuous%20text. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48561332#:~:text=Of%20c... Of course no one wants to use a feature that creates a huge link and throws in a bunch of disingenuous text.
- einpoklum 5mo ago> That’s a 0.21% usage rate, which works out to about 1 in 476 visitors. That's actually not low at all, and much higher than I would have expected for government website pages. Not to mention the _actual_ social sharing of mentioning pages to people you know who need the information on those pages.
- broodbucket 5mo agoI don't click share buttons because I don't know what it's going to do. I don't want something copied that says "Check out this Thing on this Site! <url>" because then I have to delete half of it at which point it's slower than copying the URL. If every share button had the same behaviour then maybe I would.
- filup 5mo agoSo true. I too dual as an automatic link cleaner. When I receive a link with a 100 character hash attached I gasp and yell at the person who sent me it (my wife normally)
- serial_dev 5mo agoThey put so much stuff into the URL, usually my user ID, my phone, browser info etc… I don’t necessarily want the people I share the link with to know my potentially pseudonymous user.
- NikolaNovak 5mo agoThis. It may copy a url or it may automatically send me to my Facebook profile and prepopulate a post. Very rarely do share buttons copy a simple meaningful url to my clipboard.
- elpocko 5mo agoI remember back when Wordle was popular, people said the "Share result" feature was so effective, it was the reason for the game's viral success. I can't think of any other example though.
- smcin 5mo agoWell, that combined with the expectation that the recipient would also try that daily challenge, then presumably respond with comment/message/reshare comparing how they did.
- klinquist 5mo agoNobody clicks share buttons to "just share links" But ... make it share something more useful and they might use it more. I author a Caltrain app, and if you are viewing the time schedule, the share button pops up the iOS share sheet pre-filled with "I'm taking train XX leaving <location> at <time> and arriving at <location> at <time>. Track my train <link>."
- joshstrange 5mo ago0.21% sounds low but my initial thought is "I don't know if they are making the point they think they are". Conversion rates are always pretty low. That said, I've never clicked on a share button mostly because: - I don't know what it will do, it's not consistent at all - It might add extra crap "Your friend shared 'Story Title' with you!" - It will probably try/want to add tracking crap I always just copy the URL and send it however I want to send it. People aren't stupid when it comes to sharing, they understand how to accomplish what they want, we don't need a dedicated share button. What we don't have, and hopefully never will, is the number of people who click the share button verses the people that copy/paste the URL which I assume 90% of people who want to share do. It's universal, it "just works". Clicking the share button means I'm at the mercy of the site operator, copying the URL puts me in control.
- theturtletalks 5mo agoExactly but companies have started hijacking the copy icon button as well. You’d think that would just copy what’s in the text box, but they add tracking and other stuff. The worst is the YouTube share button. You can share the button with the exact second mark in the video and I would do that. Then one time I noticed the URL was shortened and added a lot of tracking.
- joshstrange 5mo agoNothing bugs me more than copy/pasting some text from an article and getting: "Text that you copied" - From XYZ Times (httx://abc123.tld/path/to/article) Apple Books does that nonsense as well and it drives me up a wall. I'm sure there are browser extensions to tame but this thankfully there aren't many website that do this that I care to visit often. > Then one time I noticed the URL was shortened and added a lot of tracking. Ugh, yeah, this is really annoying as well. When a dedicated share button is my only option (like in a mobile app) I often open an incognito/private browsers window and paste it in so I can get redirected and then rip off all the tracking crap. Back when I used TikTok I had an iOS shortcut that I would "share" to which would rip off all the tracking for me. I always would feel gross when someone "anonymous" would share a TikTok or similar link and there would be a banner at the top of the page "Real Name shared this with you, follow them?".
- jdw64 5mo ago0.2 %is quite significant, isn't it? My small website (www.makonea.com) gets about 90,000 visitors a month on average. (That's about 300 per day?) So that means a post gets shared about once every two days. Maybe I should seriously consider making my posts more shareable. And if I promote it on HN, I'd hope there's a 0.2 %chance that people would check out my site.
- 6510 5mo agoImagine what buying high value visitors costs. 10 bucks is nothing to gain one person who is actually interested. At least 300 free money right there
- kxrm 5mo agoReddit is full of YouTube links with the `si=` param which indicates they clicked the "Share" button. All indicators are this article's premise is not true.
- preciousoo 5mo agoThe link sharing platform is full of people interested in sharing links, that makes sense, similar to how a mall would be full of people interested in shopping
- ludwik 5mo agoThe article is about how people decide to share links, nie whether they share links at all.
- brikym 5mo agoThe user has to have an extra reason to use it. Share buttons or stateful URLs are great when user input is embedded. You have to add that extra user generated sauce or it's not worth it. Web games (like my redactle.net) will typically have a share button that allows players to share their score. Calculator tools often include a way to share a URL with all the fields filled. Youtube does it with timestamp links.
- azhenley 5mo agoAre the 14,078 share events from unique users? If not, the usage rate would be even lower (<0.21% of users share but sometimes share multiple times).
- dewey 5mo agoThe point of share buttons in most cases is the tracking pixel that comes with it, not the share feature itself. Also when you work with real users, not developers who remove tracking parameters you quickly realize that share buttons are used and people complain about them if they don’t work, can confirm from my own experience.
- franze 5mo agorunning my own experiment and the chatgpt button by now gets more clicks than the share buttons ie https://www.veganblatt.com/a/hafermilch-edeka https://www.veganblatt.com/a/hafermilch-edeka (german)
- 6510 5mo ago16x16 flat icons in an invisible shade of gray? Could vegan eye sight be that good? I have a theory about higher alertness from turning into prey from eating plants but that is not important right now :=)
- frou_dh 5mo agoThe tapestry of share buttons were certainly novel and interesting like 20 years ago. They may be lame and 99+% ignored now but it's been a slide to this state of affairs.
- PUSH_AX 5mo agoYes they do.
- andy_ppp 5mo agoThis is something Wordle got completely correct, it just allows you to copy an emoji version of your game into any social media you like. Giving people agency to edit rather than mild fear of how will sharing actually work is much more likely to work!
- mattjoyce 5mo agoSure the idea isn't that every page should be shared equally? Is the percentage of sharing based all visited pages and is that a good way measure it? Imagine if all the very low sharing was from 3 pages, that would be a signal worth investigating.
- TheRoque 5mo agoI click on the share button to get the link, that I copy and share myself. And it's on my phone only, on my computer I'd just copy the URL since I'm out of an app The YouTube share feature let you pick the time to share but they removed it for some reason m..
- Kuyawa 5mo agoIn the same vein, nobody subscribes to a channel no matter how many times they remind them in the middle of the stream. I never understood why content creators keep using that cheap trick looking like beggars.
- sealthedeal 5mo agoIt only matters if it's ruining the actual experience of the reader. Kind of an odd article if im being honest.
- TrackerFF 5mo agoThe only time I ever use the share function, is in apps - and I want to share something with a chat. Outside apps, never.
- wenbin 5mo agoFrom our experience at listennotes.com over past ~10 years - people do click share buttons. For us, it's still worth the screen real estate to place share buttons.
- dbvn 5mo agoWho tf uses a government website to judge sharing metrics... "look at this awesome new regulation, buddy!"
- bitbasher 5mo agoGetting a user to do _anything_ on your site is difficult. I run a SaaS product that has closed sign ups. I get inbound email asking (sometimes begging) for access to the service. I follow up with their usecase (make sure they are a good fit, I get a lot of abuse). They respond with a seemingly good fit. I generate the account and give them access and they never log in. This happens way more often than I would like. It's so bad, I started to wonder if there's some kind of underground market for selling accounts. In the end, people are finicky and you can't predict anything they will do.
- ramijames 5mo agoI didn't even bother adding them to miserablyunemployed.com. I asked a bunch of our users and zero said they wanted them. I built other stuff instead.
- dzonga 5mo agoas someone who runs a small competitor to ga4 - yeah a lot of traffic shows up as direct cz sometimes utm params get stripped out by the OS / browser. if people copy link - they also try manually remove the extra fluff.
- fmajid 5mo agoOf course, but the real purpose for those buttons is to allow Google, Meta et al to build a marketing dossier of the websites you visit. Made a little less effective with cookie partitioning, but that's where browser fingerprinting kicks in. Cynical exploitation of publishers who are desperate for any revenue stream or virality in a collapsing ad market.
- crypto137 5mo agoBig shoutout to porn website share buttons, for all the crazy bastards out there and the developers who thought they should get the love they deserve.
- donohoe 5mo agoUser behavior shifts over time. When I was at The New Yorker you’d see that a tiny but meaningful % of users used share tools. Even with that decline the % in this story is ‘good’ especially if you assume 40% of their traffic are probably bots. What it also misses is: even if someone doesn’t use share tools, they do act as an call-to-action that can inspire people to share - though they may copy the url and not use the button. It’s a tough game.
- joshu 5mo agofun fact, I originally came up with this idea for the “save to delicious” button. i think there was even a patent filed. Usage-wise, nobody used them at all.
- pploug 5mo agoAlways assumed the SoMe sharing buttons was primarily motivated by the social sites to get their pixel on as many sites as possible to track behavior across sites