ReadWriteWeb

Hundreds of thousands of websites are using a new service to track when readers copy and paste content from their sites into an email, blog post or elswhere. The service, called Tynt, isn't just making sure that credit is given where it is due - it's tracking what content is of interest to readers... right down to the word.

Tynt says that people copy and paste content and links 50 times as often as they click on sharing buttons to post to networks like Facebook and Twitter. Now the company is opening up a series of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that will allow publishers to track automatically what particular words readers on their site are interested in. That data has incredible potential, but it's not clear it will be used in ways that befit the opportunity it presents.

AddThis, one of the leading link sharing services used by sites all around the web (including this one), announced today that it now offers publishers information about the types of interests their readers and content sharers have demonstrated on the other sites they have visited. The company says it sees 1 billion unique people every month, a very substantial portion of the internet, and tracks their interests with cookies.

Privacy-first advocates may raise concerns about tracking like this, but for publishers interested in learning more about their audiences and the people who help distribute their content, the information could prove quite valuable. Unfortunately, the interests exposed right now are fairly general (music, education) and available only through a dashboard view to publishers. If that data were to be made available programmatically, through an Application Programming Interface (API), then some really interesting recommendations and other services could be built on top of it.

Have you noticed those little links next to blog posts and news stories that say "Share This"? Click on that link and you get a pop-up with options to share an article on Delicious, Facebook, StumbleUpon or other services. Did you know that ShareThis.com has raised $21 million from venture capitalists for its version of that service?

If you think that's crazy - you're wrong. ShareThis is a great example of the kind of company that could become a key foundation for innovation in the next era of the web. If it doesn't sell out to advertisers too quickly or too completely. The company released a new version of its widget today and I took the opportunity to talk to CEO Tim Schigel about where the company is headed in the future.

ShareThis reports that it is now.

How do website readers prefer to share stories they find with friends? According to the company behind the widely used sharing widget ShareThis, after emailing a link, the most popular method of sharing is now Facebook. The numbers are interesting - but there are also some big caveats to keep in mind.