There’s a new content sharing widget in town and it’s called Tell-A-Friend.

Like ShareThis and AddThis, Tell-A-Friend is placed on webpages by publishers so their visitors can easily share content with friends (we’ve placed the AddThis button at the bottom of every TechCrunch post). But unlike these existing solutions, Tell-A-Friend users can share content with their instant messaging contacts in addition to their email and social networking ones.

Tell-A-Friend supports four IM services: Yahoo, Google, AIM and MSN. When you send something via IM, the service essentially signs into your account in the background (I know this because AIM warned me that I was now signed in from two locations). It then sends an IM with the link and message you’ve provided to all the selected recipients. One big problem, though: if your recipients aren’t online, they won’t get the message, and there’s no way to check their status from the widget. (Update: This appears to be a problem on a per-service basis. For example, Gtalk supports offline messaging but AIM does not).Source:TechCrunch

Sugar Inc, owner of the popular Sugar blog network that includes PopSugar, is launching a free blogging platform called OnSugar. The OnSugar platform is designed to be as simple as possible while still remaining versatile, and already has a proven track record - the Sugar blog network is written using the same technology. Users will be given tools to create special features that have become mainstays on the blogs, including photo galleries and polls, and will also have access to a large repository of free images from Getty.

Bloggers will be able to monetize their sites through standard ad networks like AdSense or Glam, and will also be able to include ShopStyle widgets (though they won’t be available until the final launch in 90 days). ShopStyle, which was acquired by Sugar last fall, allows bloggers to create visual spreads of real-world products. Bloggers will get a cut of any sales that result from the widgets.

The format is a one line tip directly below the Tweet. The message might be flattering to CNet’s Caroline McCarthy, but it’s a fair guess that this […]Source:Techcrunch
Sugar Inc., hot off their first acquisition (ShopStyle) two weeks ago, is announcing their second deal tonight - the purchase of fashion blog network Coutorture. Deal size is not being announced, but it was a mix of cash and stock.
Coutorture has a network of 230 blogs written by readers, who compete for headline space on […]