Re: Sharing buttons.... Sorry, but no, you're mistaken. LOTS of people use them. The trick is to make them unobtrusive and yet easy to find. Anything more complex than putting the buttons off to the side or at the bottom or top of the story is unnecessary.

I share links via Tweeting or Facebook far, far more often than via email. And usually I'll look around for a button to share a story right there, because it'll generally have the title already in it for me, the shortlink, etc. Building my own is too much work.

So much so that if I can't find the button to share the story, I usually end up not sharing it at all. This is a split second decision, if it takes more than a button press or two for me to do it, then I won't bother with it. And that's a shame because it means that your content won't get seen by people I have some level of influence over.

Sharing buttons for Facebook and Twitter are basically required, in my view. Any extra services are a tad pointless, the top two are enough. If you want a third, Google Buzz is a good one because it's linked in with Google Reader, which has bajillions of users using it.

Note: I will never use a button on a site to email the story to somebody. The very last thing I ever want a site to do is to email something to somebody else using my name. I don't trust your email button and I never will. So those I avoid like the plague.