You don’t see many websites nowadays that lack social sharing buttons. Sharing links, videos and images is fun and becoming integrated in major browsers like Firefox and Chrome, but the people you’re sharing things with may not always experience those items the same way as you did. Ever wish sharing things was more seamless?

There used to be a website called Screen2, which would allow you to share your desktop browser view with a friend. It worked without requiring either of you to install any programs or plugins, kind of like an web-based, live screencasting application to help you and your buddy surf the net together. Screen2 doesn’t exist anymore, but the idea has stuck and has been improved in the form of Channel.me.

Channel.Me is a neat website that helps you and your buddy (or buddies) navigate pages together and note interesting parts, especially if you’re both on separate places and are talking about a cool website. It blows the water out of just sharing links since it’s an easier way to surf and explore the web together.

All you have to do is go to Channel.me and type the URL of the website that you want to surf with someone. A good real-world example use of this website would be if both (or several) of you are going on a trip and want to explore hotel options and such. Once you have typed in the website and click on the Start Surf Together, you’ll receive a special link for you to share with your friend via email, Facebook or Twitter. Once your friend clicks the link, he or she will be taken to the same exact website as you, but there will now be a chat room on a bar at the bottom of your screen, where you can easily input your name. You and your buddy can invite more friends to explore the same site easily with the same Channel.me special link.

On the site you’re exploring, you or the other participants can add sticky notes to the site, highlighting and pinpointing interesting parts of the website.

You can also perform Google searches to navigate to other sites.

When either of you click on a website link, there will be a popup indicating that one of you has clicked on a link so the Channel.me will load its bar on a different website.
Unfortunately, the notes you made in the previous page will not be available if you come back.

Since Channel.me is in beta, there might be hiccups when loading a website, but refreshing usually seems to clear those. Still, it’s a pretty cool way to share what you’re seeing and for me, it totally trumps sharing images or links on IM networks. Also, Channel.me has a Chrome extension that puts a blue koala button next to the Omnibar. Once you click it, it opens up the page you’re visiting in another tab and spits out the special link for you to share with your friends immediately.

Overall, Channel.me makes it more seamless to share pages with friends. There are web browsers that take social sharing to a whole new level, like Flock, RockMelt, and Fizzik. If you own a website and want a more permanent sharing feature for your visitors, check out Wibiya or Meebo Bar, or you can stick to services that provide all-in-one social sharing buttons, like Share Sidebar or AddThis. If you’re a regular user and don’t want to use separate bookmarklets for sharing on different social networks, check out Sharetivity and Faviki. You don’t actually even need to be sharing things using bookmarklets since you can even bookmark in Gmail!

Do you use similar tools? If so, which services do you use? Let us know in the comments!