sphere it!

In the last week we’ve been on the road talking to folks about how our Sphere It! bookmarklet can help introduce great media content and great blogs can be aligned. The net results for publishers is a better user experience, additional page views and an opportunity to acquire new readers. For bloggers, it’s about credibility, page views and an opportunity to reach a much broader audience than those of us intimate with the blogosphere.

In case you’re unfamiliar with our favorite ap, the Sphere It! bookmarklet is a free bookmarklet that makes it easy to find blog posts that relate to what people are reading on the Web. Here’s what you do:

 

Step 1: point, click and drag
For Safari or Firefox: Install the Bookmarklet by dragging this button to your browser’s toolbar in Safari or Firefox.
For Internet Explorer: Right-click this button and select “Add to Favorites”. IE will point out that you are adding a “potentially unsafe” item to your toolbar. This is a standard warning for all javascript bookmarklets. Our bookmarklet is not only safe, but indispensable, so please answer “Yes”.

Step 2: find an article to read at your favorite website
Go to one of your favorite websites and click on an article that interests you. Let’s say you’re reading an article on CNN.com about Global Warming, and you’re wondering what bloggers have to say about that topic. Click the Sphere It! icon and in seconds, you’ll land on a search results page with links to blog posts along with additional news articles that match the subject of the article you were reading.

[Note that the Sphere It! Bookmarklet finds blog posts related to the content of the page you’re reading, instead of just using links, so it works best on a page that discusses a single story, such as a news article, rather than a page that contains fragments of many different stories (of course, try it on any page, you might be surprised how well it works. Have fun!]

As always, please keep the feedback coming!