I’m testing out ShareThis, a small Javascript addition that consolidates all the “sharing” functions into one button, replacing that row of links that formerly read “digg, newsvine, reddit,” etc.

In addition to looking less cluttered, this has the highly desirable side effect of reducing the download size of the front page, by replacing all those lengthy links with one bit of Javascript code for each post. ShareThis includes more social networking services than we previously had, and also has features to let you email the post, and even post an entry about it to Blogger, Wordpress, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

UPDATE at 9/25/08 5:01:40 pm:

A couple more notes:

* Yahoo Buzz is still not included in the ShareThis list of social bookmarking sites, so for now that’s a separate button.

* We now have two ways to email an article to a friend or friends — the long-standing LGF way that you get to by clicking the icon, and the new ShareThis way. The old-fashioned LGF way sends a full HTML version of the post with images, so for now I’m keeping both of these options.

UPDATE at 9/25/08 5:39:58 pm:

I don’t usually like to include outside Javascript at LGF, but I’m making an exception for Yahoo Buzz because I know I don’t have to worry about their servers getting slow, and for ShareThis because their service really packs a lot of value in a pretty small Javascript file (they also seem to have many hamster-packed servers). And I like the ShareThis API; it’s simple and extensible.

Unfortunately, it also involves embedding some Javascript in the HTML code to create each instance of the button, so it’s not ideal “unobtrusive” Javascript. But I’m picking nits.