Nick Wilson, on Performancing Blog, says that there’s three reasons why Snap Preview is ruining my blog.
I removed it before I read this because John Welch complained. Well, and a few other readers. I gave it a fair try, though, and I think it’s important to try new approaches and see if they’ll add value. One can never be sure before you try. I have been talking with the Snap folks, though, and they are working hard on answering these concerns.
Scobleizer 
i agree with that. snap preview was very much annoying! when we go for any blog..we want to read the blog content without something else pop up due unintentionally mouseover!
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i agree with that. snap preview was very much annoying! when we go for any blog..we want to read the blog content without something else pop up due unintentionally mouseover!
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i agree – those previews are very annoying, and they don’t offer anything in return. What am I supposed to glean from that postage-stamp-sized preview? I can’t judge the quality of the content. I can’t judge the quality of the design, or the photography, or anything else. That preview tells me nothing.
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i agree – those previews are very annoying, and they don’t offer anything in return. What am I supposed to glean from that postage-stamp-sized preview? I can’t judge the quality of the content. I can’t judge the quality of the design, or the photography, or anything else. That preview tells me nothing.
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Good move Scoble. I love the comparison to late 90’s newb flash sites, so true, not useful. They need to reinvent themselves as a “right click and go to the google cache version of the link” or something. Content is king, and there is not usable content in those pops. (Vista has a similar popup on the taskbar, hint hint)Good job removing Scoble, when you install, everyone and their mother-n-law gets to installing them. It’s all Mike Arrington’s Fault!! 😛
Nick Wilson has a great point, but before he complains about usability on other people’s site, he might want to get the comments working on his own. =P
Jason
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Good move Scoble. I love the comparison to late 90’s newb flash sites, so true, not useful. They need to reinvent themselves as a “right click and go to the google cache version of the link” or something. Content is king, and there is not usable content in those pops. (Vista has a similar popup on the taskbar, hint hint)Good job removing Scoble, when you install, everyone and their mother-n-law gets to installing them. It’s all Mike Arrington’s Fault!! 😛
Nick Wilson has a great point, but before he complains about usability on other people’s site, he might want to get the comments working on his own. =P
Jason
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I have a WordPress blog that had Snap added to it too. Is there a disable option for us freebie bloggers?
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I have a WordPress blog that had Snap added to it too. Is there a disable option for us freebie bloggers?
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Page Graffitti, never good.
ContentLink is another that drives me nuts…see the double underlined links…
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/01/30.7.shtml
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Page Graffitti, never good.
ContentLink is another that drives me nuts…see the double underlined links…
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/01/30.7.shtml
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We use the Snap plugin on our blog, and like it a lot. I think it depends on the look and feel that you want on your particular blog, and if you feel that the reader gets a feel for the link from the popup. Different strokes….
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We use the Snap plugin on our blog, and like it a lot. I think it depends on the look and feel that you want on your particular blog, and if you feel that the reader gets a feel for the link from the popup. Different strokes….
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OK, I dug around and have disabled Snap.
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OK, I dug around and have disabled Snap.
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I agree with some of the sentiments expressed & I am glad Snap is working on it. However, I do like the product on blogs because it gives me a preview of the site(s) before I click over to them.
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I agree with some of the sentiments expressed & I am glad Snap is working on it. However, I do like the product on blogs because it gives me a preview of the site(s) before I click over to them.
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I don’t really get why people are so annoyed by this – when I happen to read a blog outside a feed reader, I generally use the scrollwheel with minimal mouse-hovering, so there are little or no accidental pop-ups. And when it pops up it’s fast enough to not bother me too much.
I get 100x more annoyed when visiting sites that are slowed down by truckloads of ads, animated graphics etc. And there are plenty of those!
The problem with Snap IMHO is that it’s not very useful. It may offer a tiny bit of voyeuristic satisfaction, but for it to add value it should do more, have some smart way to zoom in or something…
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I don’t really get why people are so annoyed by this – when I happen to read a blog outside a feed reader, I generally use the scrollwheel with minimal mouse-hovering, so there are little or no accidental pop-ups. And when it pops up it’s fast enough to not bother me too much.
I get 100x more annoyed when visiting sites that are slowed down by truckloads of ads, animated graphics etc. And there are plenty of those!
The problem with Snap IMHO is that it’s not very useful. It may offer a tiny bit of voyeuristic satisfaction, but for it to add value it should do more, have some smart way to zoom in or something…
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First off Robert – Thank you – I came rilly close to just either sticking to reading your feed in my reader or just s-canning the ‘blog, which I would have hated to do.
For those of you who have it on your blogs – I’m glad I’m not subscribed, that’s all I can say.
Why do I hate it so? Signal-noise. simply that, a postcard snapshot of the link is not going to tell me anything useful about the link 9 times out of 10. Maybe give me some warning if a page is “not work safe” or something, but 9 times out of 10 it’s just blocking what I wanna read.
But hey, you wanna clutter your weblog with it, it’s a free internet….
Anyways Scoble, again, thanks for dumping it. Also, thanks for providing full-text in your feed, too. 🙂
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First off Robert – Thank you – I came rilly close to just either sticking to reading your feed in my reader or just s-canning the ‘blog, which I would have hated to do.
For those of you who have it on your blogs – I’m glad I’m not subscribed, that’s all I can say.
Why do I hate it so? Signal-noise. simply that, a postcard snapshot of the link is not going to tell me anything useful about the link 9 times out of 10. Maybe give me some warning if a page is “not work safe” or something, but 9 times out of 10 it’s just blocking what I wanna read.
But hey, you wanna clutter your weblog with it, it’s a free internet….
Anyways Scoble, again, thanks for dumping it. Also, thanks for providing full-text in your feed, too. 🙂
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There is a page somewhere around the blogosphere that links to a place where you can set a cookie so that none of the websites with snap preview work on your browser. Very handy!
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There is a page somewhere around the blogosphere that links to a place where you can set a cookie so that none of the websites with snap preview work on your browser. Very handy!
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I rarely get emails about my blog, but more than a few folks took the time to email me complaining about Snap. Sort of crazy if you think about it. People hate the darned thing so much they will take the time to email you about it. Anyway, it took me a while to find the script, but I finally did and it is gone…
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I rarely get emails about my blog, but more than a few folks took the time to email me complaining about Snap. Sort of crazy if you think about it. People hate the darned thing so much they will take the time to email you about it. Anyway, it took me a while to find the script, but I finally did and it is gone…
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@Dirk:
“I don’t really get why people are so annoyed by this – when I happen to read a blog outside a feed reader, I generally use the scrollwheel with minimal mouse-hovering, so there are little or no accidental pop-ups.”
Gosh.
I’m guessing you’ve not done much usability testing. Generally speaking, rating a UI does not consist of “Hey, I think it’s fine! What’s the problem? Get the hell out of my test lab!”
I think Snap need to do some usability testing – I’ve seen lots of people who move the mouse cursor over text – in varying patterns – as they read it (I used to do that, but somewhere along the line I stopped). Imagine how annoying Snap previews are to them.
Hell, I even know someone who clicks and drags over text to select each paragraph as he reads it. It’s an almost unconscious thing for him, but all these things should be taken into account when adding ‘UI’ (or just plain noise, in the case of Snap) to plain text.
Plain text is simple and readable – apart from adding aesthetic formatting and affordances, there’s not much need to mess with it, unless you have a dumb idea/business plan.
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@Dirk:
“I don’t really get why people are so annoyed by this – when I happen to read a blog outside a feed reader, I generally use the scrollwheel with minimal mouse-hovering, so there are little or no accidental pop-ups.”
Gosh.
I’m guessing you’ve not done much usability testing. Generally speaking, rating a UI does not consist of “Hey, I think it’s fine! What’s the problem? Get the hell out of my test lab!”
I think Snap need to do some usability testing – I’ve seen lots of people who move the mouse cursor over text – in varying patterns – as they read it (I used to do that, but somewhere along the line I stopped). Imagine how annoying Snap previews are to them.
Hell, I even know someone who clicks and drags over text to select each paragraph as he reads it. It’s an almost unconscious thing for him, but all these things should be taken into account when adding ‘UI’ (or just plain noise, in the case of Snap) to plain text.
Plain text is simple and readable – apart from adding aesthetic formatting and affordances, there’s not much need to mess with it, unless you have a dumb idea/business plan.
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I guess I am the odd one out here… I actually liked it. My guess is that most people who complained are predominantly right brain inclined and love paired down interfaces (command line, no frills editors, etc.) I am not putting that down jsut different strokes. Some people like heavier graphics and bling and for others its annoying. Ultimately its the content thats king so I have a feeling your readership didn’t suffer as a result.
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I guess I am the odd one out here… I actually liked it. My guess is that most people who complained are predominantly right brain inclined and love paired down interfaces (command line, no frills editors, etc.) I am not putting that down jsut different strokes. Some people like heavier graphics and bling and for others its annoying. Ultimately its the content thats king so I have a feeling your readership didn’t suffer as a result.
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Here’s a summary for the Snap guys.
The idea is good, just the implementation irritates people. Previewing a link can be useful but it should be at the user’s discretion.
They have to know there’s a preview available and they have to control when it appears. Giving bloggers the ability to embed previews precisely and selectively would be good, too.
Short, short version: Give me more control and don’t interrupt when I’m concentrating.
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Here’s a summary for the Snap guys.
The idea is good, just the implementation irritates people. Previewing a link can be useful but it should be at the user’s discretion.
They have to know there’s a preview available and they have to control when it appears. Giving bloggers the ability to embed previews precisely and selectively would be good, too.
Short, short version: Give me more control and don’t interrupt when I’m concentrating.
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I complained about them a long time ago – you ignored me .
But replace them with something really useful – that doesn’t needlessly eat bandwidth – the Sphere It widget. In just two days it’s become the most populat outgoing link on my site – because it doesn’t slow page loads down, it has to be clicked on to be activated, AND it provides interesting data.
http://www.sphere.com/tools#getsphered
And no, I have no affiliation with them.
Rob
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I complained about them a long time ago – you ignored me .
But replace them with something really useful – that doesn’t needlessly eat bandwidth – the Sphere It widget. In just two days it’s become the most populat outgoing link on my site – because it doesn’t slow page loads down, it has to be clicked on to be activated, AND it provides interesting data.
http://www.sphere.com/tools#getsphered
And no, I have no affiliation with them.
Rob
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Rock on Scoble
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Rock on Scoble
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Robert,
I, too, am glad you ditched the snap previews. Just text, thanks. I’m a command line sort of guy.
I used to like snap alot as a search engine, until they started adding news and download our toolbar crap to their index page. Ask.com has the most elegant index page of any search engine in my opinion. The rest of them are too busy. Don’t even throw in Google, since I refuse to use them, China among other reasons.
Th
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Robert,
I, too, am glad you ditched the snap previews. Just text, thanks. I’m a command line sort of guy.
I used to like snap alot as a search engine, until they started adding news and download our toolbar crap to their index page. Ask.com has the most elegant index page of any search engine in my opinion. The rest of them are too busy. Don’t even throw in Google, since I refuse to use them, China among other reasons.
Th
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Thank You! I’ve never understood the benefit. Why would I not trust your links? You’ve got such a fantastic reputation. And bandwidth is obviously not an issue these days (maybe for mobile devices but javascript is essentially non-existent in that space).
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Thank You! I’ve never understood the benefit. Why would I not trust your links? You’ve got such a fantastic reputation. And bandwidth is obviously not an issue these days (maybe for mobile devices but javascript is essentially non-existent in that space).
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I had it on the Mindjet Labs for a few days until I realized that its JavaScript was preventing the Community Server code from functioning properly.
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I had it on the Mindjet Labs for a few days until I realized that its JavaScript was preventing the Community Server code from functioning properly.
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I agree, snappreview seems to be a tad annoying too. Nice blog btw!
🙂
Blessings.
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I agree, snappreview seems to be a tad annoying too. Nice blog btw!
🙂
Blessings.
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I complained before as well. Can someone please point me a study or explain to me the benefits of being preview a site I’ve probably never been to in my life?
I think everyone has the conversation wrong – it’s not command line vs. visually oriented people. It’s first and forthmost what are the benefits of snap.
Like I said above, I’m having a hard time figuring out why any blogger would want to provide a website preview to their readers. I think your readers trust that you won’t link to goatse or something. And if I’m interested in a topic I don’t see myself skipping out on a website because it looks like it has too many ads – my motivation to see the site probably comes second to whether or not there are too many ads.
A few weeks ago Alex Faaborg proposed a visual element for firefox’s history: http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2007/01/13/basing-the-design-of-history-on-the-users-memory/
THAT’s where visualization makes a great deal of sense! To serve as memory aid.
If there’s something I’m missing about the usefulness of Snap, can someone enlighten me?
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I complained before as well. Can someone please point me a study or explain to me the benefits of being preview a site I’ve probably never been to in my life?
I think everyone has the conversation wrong – it’s not command line vs. visually oriented people. It’s first and forthmost what are the benefits of snap.
Like I said above, I’m having a hard time figuring out why any blogger would want to provide a website preview to their readers. I think your readers trust that you won’t link to goatse or something. And if I’m interested in a topic I don’t see myself skipping out on a website because it looks like it has too many ads – my motivation to see the site probably comes second to whether or not there are too many ads.
A few weeks ago Alex Faaborg proposed a visual element for firefox’s history: http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2007/01/13/basing-the-design-of-history-on-the-users-memory/
THAT’s where visualization makes a great deal of sense! To serve as memory aid.
If there’s something I’m missing about the usefulness of Snap, can someone enlighten me?
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Now I have to modify my scrapper again! Atleast, I have only one user to push the build to(myself:D), so I can make changes as I pleae. Thankfully I haven’t released this thing:D
Got my email?
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Now I have to modify my scrapper again! Atleast, I have only one user to push the build to(myself:D), so I can make changes as I pleae. Thankfully I haven’t released this thing:D
Got my email?
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“Why would I not trust your links? You’ve got such a fantastic reputation. And bandwidth is obviously not an issue these days (maybe for mobile devices but javascript is essentially non-existent in that space).”
It’s not Scoble’s links previews are useful for, it’s the links to commenter’s sites. You have to wonder about some of them you know…
Actually, a lot of the upset over Snap is jealousy. Why did I think of that!? If it didn’t have a logo, probably would be fewer complaints.
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“Why would I not trust your links? You’ve got such a fantastic reputation. And bandwidth is obviously not an issue these days (maybe for mobile devices but javascript is essentially non-existent in that space).”
It’s not Scoble’s links previews are useful for, it’s the links to commenter’s sites. You have to wonder about some of them you know…
Actually, a lot of the upset over Snap is jealousy. Why did I think of that!? If it didn’t have a logo, probably would be fewer complaints.
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Here’s another complaint about that snap thing: the sites I already visit show an image, which is pointless because I already know what they look like. But the sites that are less popular that I haven’t heard of, which would be the most useful to have the preview going, have a blank square saying snaps hasn’t got the image for.
So what is the point of this thing again? To show us pointless thumbnail images?
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Here’s another complaint about that snap thing: the sites I already visit show an image, which is pointless because I already know what they look like. But the sites that are less popular that I haven’t heard of, which would be the most useful to have the preview going, have a blank square saying snaps hasn’t got the image for.
So what is the point of this thing again? To show us pointless thumbnail images?
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I think Snap’s auto opt-in has a value in general, but not for what they do. Can’t say more.
Power users, adblock this : http://spa.snap.com. Problem solved, not just for all WordPress blogs (apparently WordPress’s founder allows the blog owner to switch off the Snap add-on) but also on every other site on the planet.
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I think Snap’s auto opt-in has a value in general, but not for what they do. Can’t say more.
Power users, adblock this : http://spa.snap.com. Problem solved, not just for all WordPress blogs (apparently WordPress’s founder allows the blog owner to switch off the Snap add-on) but also on every other site on the planet.
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Phew!!! Thanks
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Phew!!! Thanks
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Good move. I hope others follow suit. I see Snap on lots of blogs and it’s awful! What a terrible “service”. Glad you finally got rid of it! Better late than never!
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Good move. I hope others follow suit. I see Snap on lots of blogs and it’s awful! What a terrible “service”. Glad you finally got rid of it! Better late than never!
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annoying but sometime it looks cool..hehe
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annoying but sometime it looks cool..hehe
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Add my thanks to the pile – the first time I saw Snap was at Techcrunch. Neat for the first 2 milliseconds. Who CARES what the page LOOKS like that the link refers to? I mean, really, WHO cares what it LOOKS like? It’s about the content, not visuals…
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Add my thanks to the pile – the first time I saw Snap was at Techcrunch. Neat for the first 2 milliseconds. Who CARES what the page LOOKS like that the link refers to? I mean, really, WHO cares what it LOOKS like? It’s about the content, not visuals…
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Someone asked about disabling it on a WordPress.com blog
You can do it in Presentation/Extras.
I find SNAP intrusive, annoying, and pointless.
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Someone asked about disabling it on a WordPress.com blog
You can do it in Presentation/Extras.
I find SNAP intrusive, annoying, and pointless.
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The only good use I’ve seen for a preview is on a video sharing site that when you hover over the link it shows you the first frame of the video. Other than that use the preview thing is annoying a slow. DIAF SNAP
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The only good use I’ve seen for a preview is on a video sharing site that when you hover over the link it shows you the first frame of the video. Other than that use the preview thing is annoying a slow. DIAF SNAP
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Thank God, someone finally listened.
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Thank God, someone finally listened.
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I’d hate to be in their shoes right now. So few people like their widget.
The only good use I’ve seen of it is hovering over an image preview to see a larger version of it.
If you have a tendency to read blogs as their published it’s doubly useless because the preview is never there.
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I’d hate to be in their shoes right now. So few people like their widget.
The only good use I’ve seen of it is hovering over an image preview to see a larger version of it.
If you have a tendency to read blogs as their published it’s doubly useless because the preview is never there.
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Resounding applause! I saw the note on Dave Winer’s blog where Matt Mullenweg commented about reactions to Snap! separating the geeks from the users…and was a bit offended by it. Snap has to be the most distracting and useless (well, maybe not as useless as Twitter) plug-in I’ve ever seen. You just made my user experience tons better.
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Resounding applause! I saw the note on Dave Winer’s blog where Matt Mullenweg commented about reactions to Snap! separating the geeks from the users…and was a bit offended by it. Snap has to be the most distracting and useless (well, maybe not as useless as Twitter) plug-in I’ve ever seen. You just made my user experience tons better.
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I agree. I’ve removed it too. It’s nice, but it doesn’t add real value to my blog, juts slows it down.
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I agree. I’ve removed it too. It’s nice, but it doesn’t add real value to my blog, juts slows it down.
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I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of THANK YOUs for ditching Snap. I dislike using the mouse, so I use Opera’s excellent keyboard navigation system to move around web pages, which partly works by using navigation components of a web page. Except, whenever that web page was yours and the navigation component was a link, the Snap preview would pop up, take ‘focus’ and intercept any attempts to move away from it! Very irritating.
Anyway, good decision, and good blog!
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I’d like to add my voice to the chorus of THANK YOUs for ditching Snap. I dislike using the mouse, so I use Opera’s excellent keyboard navigation system to move around web pages, which partly works by using navigation components of a web page. Except, whenever that web page was yours and the navigation component was a link, the Snap preview would pop up, take ‘focus’ and intercept any attempts to move away from it! Very irritating.
Anyway, good decision, and good blog!
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THANK YOU! Interesting service but terrible implementation.
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THANK YOU! Interesting service but terrible implementation.
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C’mon guys, give the service a break.
IMHO, anyone NOT liking it is not understanding the true meaning of being a blogger. Blogging is as much about posting information as it is linking to other sources (no need to tell Robert about THAT one!).
The service enabled me to look at blogs that with a standard text link I may not have bothered looking at.
Maybe the execution could be improved? How about a “Snap Certified Blog” icon which demonstrates to users that by hovering over the link for a period of time would trigger the link window? Can the code be set to pop open the window after a LONGER period of time?
Great idea and particularly relevant to the linking theme of the last few days. Anything that encourages people to respect the content of others by linking is a good thing for me.
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C’mon guys, give the service a break.
IMHO, anyone NOT liking it is not understanding the true meaning of being a blogger. Blogging is as much about posting information as it is linking to other sources (no need to tell Robert about THAT one!).
The service enabled me to look at blogs that with a standard text link I may not have bothered looking at.
Maybe the execution could be improved? How about a “Snap Certified Blog” icon which demonstrates to users that by hovering over the link for a period of time would trigger the link window? Can the code be set to pop open the window after a LONGER period of time?
Great idea and particularly relevant to the linking theme of the last few days. Anything that encourages people to respect the content of others by linking is a good thing for me.
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Good move, can’t see what they can do to improve it, it’s just a bad idea in the first place.
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Good move, can’t see what they can do to improve it, it’s just a bad idea in the first place.
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I did too. I read all the comments, and I agree. So I ditched it also.
Rex
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I did too. I read all the comments, and I agree. So I ditched it also.
Rex
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Actually, a lot of the upset over Snap is jealousy. Why did I think of that!? If it didn’t have a logo, probably would be fewer complaints.
Hardly. It forced me to care about where my cursor was so I didn’t accidently have some pop-up block what I was reading. You’re misspelling “annoyance”.
think Snap’s auto opt-in has a value in general, but not for what they do. Can’t say more.
“auto” opt-in? That’s um…that’s what is normally called “opt-OUT”. See, when you have to take action for it to STOP, that’s an opt-OUT system. There’s a difference.
The service enabled me to look at blogs that with a standard text link I may not have bothered looking at.
In a bloody inch square? What, precisely, did that tell you about the link?
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Actually, a lot of the upset over Snap is jealousy. Why did I think of that!? If it didn’t have a logo, probably would be fewer complaints.
Hardly. It forced me to care about where my cursor was so I didn’t accidently have some pop-up block what I was reading. You’re misspelling “annoyance”.
think Snap’s auto opt-in has a value in general, but not for what they do. Can’t say more.
“auto” opt-in? That’s um…that’s what is normally called “opt-OUT”. See, when you have to take action for it to STOP, that’s an opt-OUT system. There’s a difference.
The service enabled me to look at blogs that with a standard text link I may not have bothered looking at.
In a bloody inch square? What, precisely, did that tell you about the link?
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I got rid of SNAP windows a couple of days ago; it’s true: most readers didn’t like them. I thought they were great and easier than looking a link to find a PDF or some such nonsense. But the other day, there were too many “waiting to load” windows and it started bothering me, too, so POOF! and they were gone. Suggestion to SNAP folks: there is an old JavaScript thing that lets you choose to open links on the same or a new window that you can code into a blog. They should provide a similar feature: turn SNAP off by default and let users turn it on if desired.
I’d turn it on. I like the choice. How about it?
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I got rid of SNAP windows a couple of days ago; it’s true: most readers didn’t like them. I thought they were great and easier than looking a link to find a PDF or some such nonsense. But the other day, there were too many “waiting to load” windows and it started bothering me, too, so POOF! and they were gone. Suggestion to SNAP folks: there is an old JavaScript thing that lets you choose to open links on the same or a new window that you can code into a blog. They should provide a similar feature: turn SNAP off by default and let users turn it on if desired.
I’d turn it on. I like the choice. How about it?
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Thanks from over here too – I can’t stand things like that that pop up and cover other things. Maybe if they were transparent – but probably not.
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Thanks from over here too – I can’t stand things like that that pop up and cover other things. Maybe if they were transparent – but probably not.
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@47: John
I can’t disagree with you on the whole John, but it has some use. If on first glance, the Snapshot makes a blog look fairly good, I would probably give it a look.
Personally, the appearance of a blog says as much about the content as the content itself (although others would argue that the appearance attempts to hide a lack of quality content…like mine!!) so it is important for me to gauge credibility form looking at a preview of the page.
That said, involuntary pop-ups died when Firefox came out so why all go back to it???
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@47: John
I can’t disagree with you on the whole John, but it has some use. If on first glance, the Snapshot makes a blog look fairly good, I would probably give it a look.
Personally, the appearance of a blog says as much about the content as the content itself (although others would argue that the appearance attempts to hide a lack of quality content…like mine!!) so it is important for me to gauge credibility form looking at a preview of the page.
That said, involuntary pop-ups died when Firefox came out so why all go back to it???
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I add my thanks as well. I tend to avoid sites that employ that irritating behavior, which is what I consider the Snap preview.
Tool-tips such as the service IntelliTXT from http://www.vibrantmedia.com/ (i.e., used at http://www.activewin.com )are just as irritating.
Although it may not be the case now, but ASAP (Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals, see http://asap.maddoktor2.com/charter.html ) found tool-tips directed to malware installation sites. Both the MVPS Host file and IE-SPYAD list that URL of vibrantmeida.
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I add my thanks as well. I tend to avoid sites that employ that irritating behavior, which is what I consider the Snap preview.
Tool-tips such as the service IntelliTXT from http://www.vibrantmedia.com/ (i.e., used at http://www.activewin.com )are just as irritating.
Although it may not be the case now, but ASAP (Alliance of Security Analysis Professionals, see http://asap.maddoktor2.com/charter.html ) found tool-tips directed to malware installation sites. Both the MVPS Host file and IE-SPYAD list that URL of vibrantmeida.
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I think I’m not as bothered with Snap as some people, only because I don’t link that often.
I love it, personally.
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I think I’m not as bothered with Snap as some people, only because I don’t link that often.
I love it, personally.
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Thank goodness you came around. I saw Snap for the first time the day of your birthday post. Within three minutes I’d bitched at you in your comments, blocked Snap via Opera, and entered Snap’s servers in my hosts file for IE.
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Thank goodness you came around. I saw Snap for the first time the day of your birthday post. Within three minutes I’d bitched at you in your comments, blocked Snap via Opera, and entered Snap’s servers in my hosts file for IE.
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Snap has to visit these web sites to generate that preview picture. I just wonder how long it will be until certain, less ethical, web site owners start feeding Snap a completely different page. Then Snap preview shows clean, safe looking, ad free, page but when you visit you get a thousand ads, porn, goatse, and spyware downloads.
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Snap has to visit these web sites to generate that preview picture. I just wonder how long it will be until certain, less ethical, web site owners start feeding Snap a completely different page. Then Snap preview shows clean, safe looking, ad free, page but when you visit you get a thousand ads, porn, goatse, and spyware downloads.
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Good idea Neil…!
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Good idea Neil…!
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Good move, Robert. I absolutely can’t stand them; I never really understood why people have them.
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Good move, Robert. I absolutely can’t stand them; I never really understood why people have them.
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It could be worse.
Those sites that have the double underscore links to seemingly random words within articles that come up with similar pop up ballon ads that are related to that word are especially annoying.
The ads are usually are unrelated article, only that one word or phrase that has the double-underscored link, which made the ads even more awful as they were non sequiturs.
At least the Snap links were an attempt to be useful and relevant.
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It could be worse.
Those sites that have the double underscore links to seemingly random words within articles that come up with similar pop up ballon ads that are related to that word are especially annoying.
The ads are usually are unrelated article, only that one word or phrase that has the double-underscored link, which made the ads even more awful as they were non sequiturs.
At least the Snap links were an attempt to be useful and relevant.
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How about like key shortcuts,
say shift+click, that way it wont be intrusive.
just a thought.
Copyright 2007, genius comment inventions inc.
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How about like key shortcuts,
say shift+click, that way it wont be intrusive.
just a thought.
Copyright 2007, genius comment inventions inc.
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Quote: “I have been talking with the Snap folks, though, and they are working hard on answering these concerns.”
I’ve seen all the complaints registered in the comments of this post from others, but I was just wondering: are these complaints the same as yours? Do you have other issues with this feature? I’ve been doing a site for a co-worker http://movielanddirectory.com, which is a movie related tour guide of the LA area, and he was asking me about the possibility of adding Snap to the site. I definitely do not want to do that if it will just irritate most users.
Any-hooo, any info on the details of your concerns would be appreciated. Though the comments here already make me abit leary.
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Quote: “I have been talking with the Snap folks, though, and they are working hard on answering these concerns.”
I’ve seen all the complaints registered in the comments of this post from others, but I was just wondering: are these complaints the same as yours? Do you have other issues with this feature? I’ve been doing a site for a co-worker http://movielanddirectory.com, which is a movie related tour guide of the LA area, and he was asking me about the possibility of adding Snap to the site. I definitely do not want to do that if it will just irritate most users.
Any-hooo, any info on the details of your concerns would be appreciated. Though the comments here already make me abit leary.
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Hello,
I wanted to thank Robert again for taking the time and effort to give Snap Preview Anywhere a spin on this site.
As Robert alluded to in his post, we here at Snap are acutely aware of the issues described and we have several enhancements scheduled to release over the coming couple of weeks that in different ways will address these issues.
Rest assured that your and your readers’ viewpoints have been, and will continue to, inform the ongoing development of this product.
Jason Fields
Product Evangelist, Emerging Technology
http://www.Snap.com
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Hello,
I wanted to thank Robert again for taking the time and effort to give Snap Preview Anywhere a spin on this site.
As Robert alluded to in his post, we here at Snap are acutely aware of the issues described and we have several enhancements scheduled to release over the coming couple of weeks that in different ways will address these issues.
Rest assured that your and your readers’ viewpoints have been, and will continue to, inform the ongoing development of this product.
Jason Fields
Product Evangelist, Emerging Technology
http://www.Snap.com
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Jason, what a wonderfully articulate and graceful response to what I always thought was too many people jumping on the bandwagon.
If they all thought it was so bad isn’t it funny how many people actually signed-up to it in the first place?
I wonder just how many people in these comments thought how good it was – well aware of the pop-up implications etc.
There is a perfectly good reason you grew so quickly – because it was (and in my mind, still is) a great idea and I look forward to seeing further innovations!
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Jason, what a wonderfully articulate and graceful response to what I always thought was too many people jumping on the bandwagon.
If they all thought it was so bad isn’t it funny how many people actually signed-up to it in the first place?
I wonder just how many people in these comments thought how good it was – well aware of the pop-up implications etc.
There is a perfectly good reason you grew so quickly – because it was (and in my mind, still is) a great idea and I look forward to seeing further innovations!
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i don’t get the complaining at all. for all the rants, how many users like it silently? i’m put it across my site. i also think it’s great that snap is listening to users to figure out features and controls. any plan to grab the first frame of video for .mov files? thanks to everyone at snap.com
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i don’t get the complaining at all. for all the rants, how many users like it silently? i’m put it across my site. i also think it’s great that snap is listening to users to figure out features and controls. any plan to grab the first frame of video for .mov files? thanks to everyone at snap.com
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the snap previews is a time saver. the bubble let me decide what links are worth following at the “point of sale”. i trust your linkink robert but i don’t have time to follow each and every one of them. with previews i spend more time on your site or checking out sites you link to. with previews i spend less time on sites i did not want to visit after all.
i wonder if the people complaining here are the same people that were whining and moaning when web designers all of a sudden started using graphics. good thing that practice never took off!
change hurts… consider how much easier it is to say “no” than “yes” when confronted with something new and unfamiliar.
status quo is NOT good enough!
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the snap previews is a time saver. the bubble let me decide what links are worth following at the “point of sale”. i trust your linkink robert but i don’t have time to follow each and every one of them. with previews i spend more time on your site or checking out sites you link to. with previews i spend less time on sites i did not want to visit after all.
i wonder if the people complaining here are the same people that were whining and moaning when web designers all of a sudden started using graphics. good thing that practice never took off!
change hurts… consider how much easier it is to say “no” than “yes” when confronted with something new and unfamiliar.
status quo is NOT good enough!
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Thanks for removing them…they were driving me crazy and were terrible for usability as its so unexpected and disrupts your viewing of the site.
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Thanks for removing them…they were driving me crazy and were terrible for usability as its so unexpected and disrupts your viewing of the site.
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I like the Snap previews. I like getting a glimpse of where a link would take me; it helps me to make a more informed decision.
And for those who don’t like the previews, it so easy to disable (and NO, you don’t have to go to Snap’s site to do it). You just click “options” on any preview bubble, and from there you can opt-out of the preview for the one site you are on, or all sites.
So to me, leaving it running on your site gives me the option. Taking it off your site takes away my choice. I’d like to see it back.
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I like the Snap previews. I like getting a glimpse of where a link would take me; it helps me to make a more informed decision.
And for those who don’t like the previews, it so easy to disable (and NO, you don’t have to go to Snap’s site to do it). You just click “options” on any preview bubble, and from there you can opt-out of the preview for the one site you are on, or all sites.
So to me, leaving it running on your site gives me the option. Taking it off your site takes away my choice. I’d like to see it back.
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Bring them back. Maybe I am less geek than many of your readers but I really found them helpful.
I read in the thread that you (a reader) can easily turn them off if you don’t like them. (And if the vocal crowd is so advanced that they dont need them, why can they figure out how to turn them off. Sounds simple based on the above!)
Keeping them on and making it easy to turn off seems like a great solution to keep everyone happy.
ST
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Bring them back. Maybe I am less geek than many of your readers but I really found them helpful.
I read in the thread that you (a reader) can easily turn them off if you don’t like them. (And if the vocal crowd is so advanced that they dont need them, why can they figure out how to turn them off. Sounds simple based on the above!)
Keeping them on and making it easy to turn off seems like a great solution to keep everyone happy.
ST
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I thought Snap previews were extremely nifty the first time I saw them (me, magpie, chirp!). And I contemplated using them on some of my sites.
Then, recently, I began noticing that most of the popup windows were empty.
They gotta fix it so the popup doesn’t pop up unless it has something to offer. Otherwise, it’s just STUPID.
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I thought Snap previews were extremely nifty the first time I saw them (me, magpie, chirp!). And I contemplated using them on some of my sites.
Then, recently, I began noticing that most of the popup windows were empty.
They gotta fix it so the popup doesn’t pop up unless it has something to offer. Otherwise, it’s just STUPID.
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