The Internet today is brimming with social sharing buttons. As social networks now drive more traffic than virtually any other kind of site, there is hardly any site left today that doesn’t at least feature a Twitter and Facebook button to make sharing stories easier. Spread.ly is the latest entrant in the market of third-party sharing buttons and introduces an innovative twist to social sharing: deals.
A few weeks ago, Google introduced a Chrome plugin that allowed you to block sites you didn’t want to see in your results pages. Now, the search giant is taking this concept a step further and allows anybody to block sites right from the search results page. There is a slight twist to this, though. The link to the block feature will only appear after you have visited a site. So if you want to block a site that you deem to be offensive or of low quality, you first have to visit it before you can block it.
Just a few years ago, a massive scandal rocked the FM radio world when internal memos from Sony Music showed that the major record labels routinely bought “spins” for their artists. Earbits, a new YCombinator-funded music startup, is now bringing a more sophisticated version of this system to the web. Over 1,300 bands have already signed up for the service that will ask bands to pay to get their music to the ears of Earbits’ users.