It’s the reverse case: all sites that install a Thumbar get one backlink from Thumbar.com per article that gets rated, since rating an article instantiates a small snippet of itself at Thumbar.com with a backlink to the article at the source site. This can only increase SEO for each site that installs a Thumbar. Just like links at Google.com, links at Thumbar.com direct attention to the source of content.
If Thunbar were an authority site I would buy that but because your Alexa is like 2.5M and just anyone syndication content I can’t.
Agreed. Thumbar.com is new and has no SEO to offer sites. That can change over time, but that is not the intention. Thumbar.com has no interest in outbound or inbound SEO.