The Tao of MyLinkShares

It's obvious to some that you can author an email, copy-and-paste the URL from your address bar into that email, and send it to someone. But, it's not obvious to everyone.

Explaining why you're sending an email to someone with instructions that they should click on the link you've embedded (if it comes through as a link - in which case they will need instructions on copying and pasting the URL into their address bar) can get a little old. Especially if you send a lot of links.

If you add it all up, sending someone a link to a website you want them to see isn't always a straight forward proposition - especially if your recipient is grandma.

Even if a website you want someone to see has an "email this article" link on it you're not always guaranteed a straight forward operation. Sometimes you will get a custom form, or worse, sometimes the link will try to open your default email client - and on a slow box that can really be painful.

So even though it may seem like MyLinkShares isn't really solving any problems, if you look at it closely, you might find it fits a nice little niche'.

When I first came up with MyLinkShares I wasn't thinking of a Firefox button at all. I intended the user to copy-and-paste the URL into the form and go from there - which isn't too smooth.

When I came up with the idea of the MyLinkShares Firefox button things suddenly came together. Admittedly the MyLinkShares Firefox button takes MyLinkShares from a curiosity to something extremely useful.

Unfortunately, the major piece missing right now is a link to your email contacts from the MyLinkShares form. But, I am working on that. I expect to have some kind of prototype in the next few weeks. Maybe starting with GMail and moving on to the other major mail services.

Anyway, I appreciate all the support people have given me. And to those who are on the border of becoming a convert, please give it a try, keep an open mind, and give me constructive feedback - gadget@pykyl.com

Thanks,

Bruce S.