A share icon is a

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...

intended to convey to the user a button for performing a share action. Content platforms such as YouTube often include a share icon so that users can forward the content onto

social media platforms Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social media ...

or embed videos into their

websites A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...

, thus increasing its view count.

Share Icon

WordPress WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architecture ...

developer Alex King created the original Share Icon in 2006.

ShareThis ShareThis is a technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It offers free website tools and plugins for online content creators. ShareThis collects data on user behavior, and provides thi ...

acquired the rights to this icon a year later, and eventually licensed it under four licenses: the

share-alike Share-alike (🄎) is a copyright licensing term, originally used by the Creative Commons project, to describe works or licenses that require copies or adaptations of the work to be released under the same or similar license as the original. Copy ...

GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...

and

LGPL The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

, and the

permissive {{about, , the 1970 British film, Permissive (film), the grammatical mode, Permissive mood, the flavor of software license, permissive free software licence A permissive cell or host is one that allows a virus to circumvent its defenses and replica ...

BSD license BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lic ...

and Creative Commons Attribution 2.5. ShareThis produces widgets for accessing

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...

services from a single pop-up menu. This icon is trademarked and was cause for controversy due to it being subject to legal take-down notices despite its license.

Open Share Icon

The Open Share Icon (or Shareaholic icon) is designed to help users easily identify shareable content. The icon aims to convey the act of sharing visually by representing one hand passing an object to another hand, while also representing an eye meaning "look at this." The icon was designed by the company Shareaholic, and made available under a

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

license, with the restriction that "clear attribution and a hyperlink back to this page in a prominent location near to the image is required". The Open Share Icon is supported by Ken Rossi (creator of the widely used

OPML OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines (defined as "a tree, where each node contains a set of named attributes with string values"). Originally developed by UserLand as a native file format for the outliner appli ...

icons) and Bruce McKenzie (GeoTag icons), and is used by hundreds of websites and applications, including

SmugMug SmugMug is a paid image sharing, image hosting service, and online video platform on which users can upload photos and videos. The company also facilitates the sale of digital and print media for amateur and professional photographers. On Apri ...

, the Shareaholic Firefox addon,

Wikia Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities before 2007 and later Wikia before 2019) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e. video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). Its domain is operated by Fandom, ...

, NetworkWorld, Weather Underground, Princeton University. It is also proposed for use in the Mozilla Add-ons Directory.

Rightward arrow icon

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

uses a share icon showing an arrow pointing up and then right. The “share” button on Facebook covers several ways of sending the content with optional privacy settings to others. The „shares” button can generate more non-fans, and can result in fewer fans on a public Facebook page as a “brake effect of viral reach". The algorithmic content ranking on Facebook might decrease the fan reach in response to the notable increase in nonfan reach. Therefore, the “share” button may have a higher impact on content ranking than the previous “page like” button.

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

uses a similar icon.

Upward arrow icon

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

's products use an icon showing a box with an upward arrow. {{cite web , url=https://www.apple.com/iwork/iwork-dot-com/news/2010/04/using-iworkcom-on-your-ipad-1.html , title=iWork – iWork.com News – Using iWork.com On Your iPad , publisher=Apple , date=April 30, 2010 , accessdate=August 29, 2012 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006172557/http://www.apple.com/iwork/iwork-dot-com/news/2010/04/using-iworkcom-on-your-ipad-1.html , archivedate=October 6, 2011 , df=mdy-all This icon is used on several Apple products: * In

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

iWork iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple Inc. for its macOS and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. It includes the presentation application Keynote, the word processing and desk ...

, for sharing work on

iWork.com iWork is an office suite of applications created by Apple Inc. for its macOS and iOS operating systems, and also available cross-platform through the iCloud website. It includes the presentation program, presentation application Keynote (presen ...

. * In

Mobile Safari ''Mobile Safari'' is the third album by the Scottish band The Pastels, released in 1995. Production The album was recorded at Glasgow's Stuffhouse Studios and CAVA Sound Workshops. Dean Wareham contributed guitar to a few tracks. "Flightpaths ...

, to show a menu of options: "Add Bookmark," "Add to Home Screen," "Mail Link to this Page," and "Print." * In QuickTime X, to show the

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

MobileMe MobileMe (branded iTools between 2000 and 2002; .Mac until 2008) is a discontinued subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. All services were gradually transitioned to and eventually replaced by the f ...

Gallery,

, and trim options

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

shows a similar icon next to each tweet. This opens a menu with three options: Send via Direct Message, Add Tweet to Bookmarks, or Copy link to Tweet.

References

Graphical user interface elements Computer icons Social information processing

Share Icon

Open Share Icon

Rightward arrow icon

Upward arrow icon

See also

References