Tynt content tracking has some great uses and is extremely simple to implement. I just cannot figure out why more people are not using it. My guess is that they will!
I am a fan of knowledge. I love to know things, and this is especially true when it comes to Websites. I use a lot of tools to track what people are doing on my sites. I use Google Analytics (of course), and I love Clicky Web Analytics because I like to watch what people are doing on my site in real time (yes, I see you there, reading and copying stuff). I use BackType and Disqus, and many other great applications to keep a finger on the pulse of what is around me. Of course, not the least of these is Twitter.
What is Tynt and How Can it Help Track Content?
Today I want to share a handy tool called Tynt. What is it? It is really very simple. It helps to track content that is copied from your Website. People copy and paste things from Websites all the time. It is often just to share it with others in an email message, their Facebook, or on their blog. For the most part, it is a really great thing, and often innocent rather than theft of your content.
Tynt makes it easier to not only know what they are copying, but also to help them provide attribution. When they copy something from your site, it will automatically add additional information that you specify to their clipboard. In my case, I just have it add the page title and the Web address for where they found it. However, you can also add additional information, such as Creative Commons Licensing, an advertisement, or some other greeting.
It does not stop there. Tynt also reports back to you with what was copied and statistics on the copied content. You can choose to receive emailed reports, and you can even have it automatically post the most popular text copied from your Website to your Twitter account!
It is still simple for somebody to delete the additional information, so it is not really for thwarting content theft. There are other great tools for that (which I also use). In this case, it is more about knowing what people found compelling, outside of the commonly measured metrics like page views, time on page, and sharing statistics.
Perhaps the best way I can explain this is if you simply select some text from this page and paste it somewhere … anywhere. Just copy a little piece of this post and paste it in the comments below to see what I mean (or a text editor, or anywhere else). You may be surprised just how cool it really is. Oh, and there is a FREE version of Tynt! Here is some more information about Tynt.
Please add your comments and tell me what you think about Tynt.