By Peter Corbett
closeAuthor: Peter Corbett
Name: Peter Corbett
Email: peter@istrategylabs.com
Site: http://www.twitter.com/corbett3000
About: Peter is the CEO of iStrategyLabs and his full bio is in the About section.See Authors Posts (111) on December 30th, 2009
Posted in
Digital Word of Mouth, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Monitoring, Social Network Analysis
I’m a big fan of Clearspring, which is a DC based widget platform and social ad network. We’ve been building widgets using their technology for a couple years (lots of examples here).
What most people don’t know is that they own a super awesome piece of technology called AddThis as well – which allows publishers to easily distribute their content to something like 230+ social networks and book marking services.
The real power in AddThis is the fact that their sharing widget is embedded in over 550,000 Web sites, touching over 600 million people world wide per month, loaded over 1.3 billion times per day. That kind of reach enables them to know which content is being shared the most, and to which services.
The following is the a list of the top 15 most shared pieces of content on the web in 2009 according to their data:
The List
Santa Yourself – 71,848 shares – http://www.dancingsantacard.com/en/
The Kim Komando Show – Video of the Day – African thunderstorm – 50,008 shares- http://videos.komando.com/2009/06/18/african-thunderstorm/
Pawnation – “Suprised Kitty” Rampages Across Nation – 32,270 shares – http://www.pawnation.com/2009/12/03/suprised-kitty-rampages-across-nation/
disinformation – Cannabis College Now Enrolling Students – 24,338 shares – http://www.disinfo.com/2009/11/cannabis-college-now-enrolling-students/?sms_ss=stumbleupon
Pawnation – Viral ‘Extreme Shepherding’ Ad Campaign Lights Up the Welsh Hills – 18,165 shares – http://www.pawnation.com/2009/12/11/viral-extreme-shepherding-ad-campaign-lights-up-the-welsh-hill/
TMZ – Michael Jackson Dies – 13,481 shares- http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-dies-death-dead-cardiac-arrest/
Mercola.com – Swine Flu — One of the Most Massive Cover-ups in American History – 12,722 shares – http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/What-We-Have-Learned-About-the-Great-Swine-Flu-Pandemic.aspx?sms_ss=facebook
lemondrop – Best. Wedding Entrance. Ever. – 12,693 shares – http://www.lemondrop.com/2009/07/24/-wedding-entrance-video-forever-ever/
Pawnation – Faith the Two-Legged Dog Turns Seven This Christmas – 11,546 shares – http://www.pawnation.com/2009/12/18/faith-the-two-legged-dog-turns-seven-this-christmas/
CNBC – Santelli’s Tea Party – 11,020 shares – http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853
tom’s hardware – Best Graphics Cards For The Money: November ‘09 – 10,802 shares – http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2464.html?sms_ss=digg
PopEater – Ukrainian Has Definitely ‘Got Talent’ – 10,620 shares- http://www.popeater.com/2009/08/28/ukrainian-talent-winner/
Telegraph – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past – 10,502 shares – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/6256173/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-revealed-to-have-Jewish-past.html
The Kim Komando Show – Video of the Day – Man’s surprising laugh – 7,340 shares- http://videos.komando.com/2008/06/04/mans-surprising-laugh/
El Caso Mascherano – Investigación – Parte 1 – 7,149 shares- http://www.casomascherano.com.ar/videos/investigacion-el-caso-mascherano-parte-1.php
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Santa Yourself – 71,848 shares
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The Kim Komando Show – Video of the Day – African thunderstorm – 50,008 shares
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Pawnation – “Suprised Kitty” Rampages Across Nation – 32,270 shares
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disinformation – Cannabis College Now Enrolling Students – 24,338 shares
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Pawnation – Viral ‘Extreme Shepherding’ Ad Campaign Lights Up the Welsh Hills – 18,165 shares
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TMZ – Michael Jackson Dies – 13,481 shares
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Mercola.com – Swine Flu — One of the Most Massive Cover-ups in American History – 12,722 shares
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lemondrop – Best. Wedding Entrance. Ever. – 12,693 shares
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Pawnation – Faith the Two-Legged Dog Turns Seven This Christmas – 11,546 shares
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CNBC – Santelli’s Tea Party – 11,020 shares
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tom’s hardware – Best Graphics Cards For The Money: November ‘09 – 10,802 shares
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PopEater – Ukrainian Has Definitely ‘Got Talent’ – 10,620 shares
-
Telegraph – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past – 10,502 shares
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The Kim Komando Show – Video of the Day – Man’s surprising laugh – 7,340 shares
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El Caso Mascherano – Investigación – Parte 1 – 7,149 shares
One of the more fascinating things you can do with AddThis is compare which sharing services users from individual countries use most. For example, it’s no surprise that Facebook tops the list of overall most popular place to share content to globally. What’s interesting in the comparison below, though, is that Twitter is actually more popular in the UK then Email for sharing – that’s not the case in the US.

Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Nehal
December 30th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
It’s interesting to see that even when sharing, Americans are hesitant to share on a gigantic platform such as Twitter compared to UK. Also, printing?
What reasons do you think printing are so high up in the charts?
Peter Corbett
December 31st, 2009 at 12:41 am
I really think it’s as simple as the fact that people print a lot still and the addthis button for doing that is apparently very popular. It informs the fact that when designing a site it should look good in print as well.
Nehal
December 31st, 2009 at 1:09 am
I agree Peter. Definitely something to consider to satisfy different readers and their method of consuming the content.
Thanks for the article!
-Nehal
@nehalkazim