Spread.ly is a tool created by ekaabo GmbH to allow websites to incorporate social sharing and tracking of shares. It was founded in 2006 and initially focused on online communities before recognizing an opportunity presented by Facebook's Like button in 2010. Spread.ly incorporates technology from previous projects to provide websites using its tools with more detailed analytics about social sharing than Facebook alone. It aims to provide benefits to websites like helping them reach new users and participate in social media, while addressing limitations of other sharing buttons like the difficulty in measuring their impact.