Top 15 Most Shared Content on the Web in 2009

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:

1. Santa Yourself – 71,848 shares

2. The Kim Komando Show – Video of the Day – African thunderstorm – 50,008 shares

3. Pawnation – “Suprised Kitty” Rampages Across Nation – 32,270 shares

4. disinformation – Cannabis College Now Enrolling Students –  24,338 shares

5. Pawnation – Viral ‘Extreme Shepherding’ Ad Campaign Lights Up the Welsh Hills – 18,165 shares

6. TMZ – Michael Jackson Dies – 13,481 shares

7. Mercola.com – Swine Flu — One of the Most Massive Cover-ups in American History – 12,722 shares

8. lemondrop – Best. Wedding Entrance. Ever. – 12,693 shares

9. Pawnation – Faith the Two-Legged Dog Turns Seven This Christmas – 11,546 shares

10. CNBC – Santelli’s Tea Party – 11,020 shares

11. tom’s hardware – Best Graphics Cards For The Money: November ’09 – 10,802 shares

12. PopEater – Ukrainian Has Definitely ‘Got Talent’ – 10,620 shares

13. Telegraph – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past – 10,502 shares

14. The Kim Komando Show – Video of the Day – Man’s surprising laugh – 7,340 shares

15. 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.