AlwaysOn OnMedia: CEO Showcase: Sharethis

By now you probably all know the icon icon. You know, the one that enables you to bookmark and share content that you think is interesting. I has the opportunity to speak with Tim Schigel, the CEO of Share This and he shared some of his thinking on growing his company.   Share This was basically launched 2 months ago and already has garnered 120mm Page Views.  Their goal is to build an influence-based, trusted referral marketing network.  And you know, they have a shot at this.  Precisely for the same reason that I think Facebook will eventually get this right as well.  We're moving quickly to a marketing model that strongly leverages word of mouth.   Influence and Trusted Referrals (read: shared items from friends, colleagues and families), provide tremendous power in a referral marketing model.  From Tim's perspective, every time some person shares something with another person, he has the opportunity to serve up contextual ads as part of that share.  The biggest problem that I see?  There are an awful lot of competing ad networks, vying for eyeballs and real estate.  Can they scale enough to make their network worth something is the big question.

BTW, I am sitting here in the hallway at the conference on the floor because THERE IS NO POWER AT THIS CONFERENCE. I found an outlet behind a sign. Note to Tony Perkins... if you are going to have bloggers at an event, a few strategically placed power strips would be nice!