Thank you mudiko.
Blockchain technology lets user track their shares more transparent and makes possible to exchange shares without control of the company. It is better, when shares are distributed through tokens.
earlier, it is not a must, but rather preferred.
If a token is built on top of etherum (which appears to be simple to do) do transactions for that token automatically show up somewhere public for people to check, like the ethereum blockchain I guess? Or is that something separate that I would need to implement?
Yes they do. They have their tokens blockchain connected to ethereum. As an example you can check GNN's token.