GRAZEit Share Content Increase Traffic
The tagline for this site is “Spread the word where it matters.” That’s not a bad sum-up for what this site is all about. GRAZEit, in a nutshell, is all about sharing content from sites you’ve found around the Web while promoting your own site at the same time. Sort of like Digg with pingbacks.
GRAZEit is a browser plugin that shows you relevant content while you’re surfing. On the flip side of that, it allows you to include your own site content so that other Grazers will notice it during relevant surfing. So if your blog is all about pizza reviews and someone visits Dominoes.com to order pizza, they’ll see a GRAZEit of your review of Dominoes.
There are a lot of potential uses for this service, though I can quickly see it being inundated with get-rich-quick types who’ll stuff it with their irrelevant garbage. Also, to be honest, it can be somewhat annoying while you’re surfing. Almost like if Google’s AdWords were force-fed to your browser while you surfed.
While it’s not really social networking, GRAZEit does allow you to build friends lists so that their Grazes will be featured over others while you surf.
The service and plugin are free to try while in beta. I’m guessing, though, that the “advanced options” they plan to charge for in the future might include AdWords-like payments for preference in results. The group that built the service is being quiet about their future plans.
In any regard, GRAZEit is becoming a popular service, so there may be something to it. I personally found it to be kind of annoying and some of the results to be less than relevant. While reading an article about nano-technology for building lithium-ion battery cells, for instance, I was shown a Graze to a person’s Facebook page. Two mentions of “lithium-ion battery” on their page (talking about their e-skateboard, no less) are what triggered the link. Huh?
Some might find it fun and useful, however, and there are some ways to filter and change results as well as manipulate what is and isn’t linked to your own content. So it might be worth a try if you’re interested in trying something new as a way to enhance your surfing.
