To implement the system, you add the proverbial “one line of JavaScript” to your site. From then on, Tynt records what people copy on your site,and when they paste text (in an email, for example), a link to your site is included. I copied a paragraph of text from my blog and pasted it below to show you what it looks like:

In the case of my blog, people have copied images 1,498 times and 11,268,716 words. In total, Tynt has tracked over 750,000 images and one billon words since March from several thousand sites and blogs. In addition providing this information, Tynt also increases your page views when recipients of email click on the link. Until now, it someone unusually diligent who copied your text, pasted it, and then repeated the process with page’s URL.

As the owner of a site or blog, you get pages of information from Tynt. First, here’s what the Tynt dashboard looks like. (Click here for a full-size image.)

Second, diving down a level, here is the information for a particular posting. (Click here for a full-size image.)

Third, this is an example of the Tynt heat map which shows what text people are copying the most in a posting—unlike with bloodshot eyes, red is good. (Click here for a full-size image.)

The service is in beta, but open and free for everyone to try. Go to the Tynt homepage to start the process. Before I installed the service, I told the fellows at Tynt that I doubted that people copied text from my blog very often. I was amazed at how often it actually happens. You’ll probably be surprised too. If you’re a small business owner with a website or blog, this kind of information is very useful.