Snap Preview

I finally got around to putting the Snap Preview Widget on my blog. I am sure you've already seen them around the blog world. Apparently they've already gotten over 25,000 blogs to implement it.

I like seeing a preview of the page before I click on the link. I hope you do too.

If you want to get it for your blog too, just visit Snap.

Comments

[Erik Schwartz]

Most importantly...

http://www.rojo.com/story/gILBcLDnba04TMsr

How to disable it at the client level.

[Peter]

I find it annoying and intrusive - hope it doesn't spread further. I'm willing to bet this "fashion" will be gone soon, and back to good old links that don't hover crazy balloons getting in your way.

[jim santo]

How does seeing a preview of the site prevent me from "wasting" a click? Why even link to other sites if you don't want people clicking away, without first vetting them with a preview?

If you, Fred, are linking to another site, I assume it's worth visiting. I don't need a little picture to confirm my assumption.

Snap is a solution looking for a problem.

[Michael]

Thank you Erik! You're a gentleman and a scholar. :-)

[ming666]

it seems like a "nice" idea. however, it is totally unusable if you are over 40. i hope its just a cool widget someone thought up and not a business. oh no here comes one of those "long tail" or "no barriers to entry" speeches that seems to be wearing out the vc breakfast/lunch/cocktail party circuit these days.

[ming666]

did a little checksee on snap. the about page lists quite the selection of web 1.0 rogues. idealab (too bad internet capital group wasn't still around) + mayfield. yet another "echo chamber" investment. don't worry i'll buy yours if you buy mine.

[howard lindzon]

I loved it the first time I saw it and now it just bugs me. I am happy I was too lazy to install and that you are not. Let's see how it goes with your readers

[jim]

Snap is an annoying widget with very little benefit. Lot's of horsepower on this team and BOD, very surprising...

[Dorrian]

I agree with most - I find it useless and annoying and it must be some kind of trojan horse for snap into some other play.

[Francesco]

I read the feed, but I don't really like it. See http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/wordpresscom-please-stop-using-snap-preview/.

Best, f.

[Colin Henderson]

I find it annoying actually - sorry. I think its being done because its a new thing, but the utility to the user (me) is zero. I can see that their is a site behind that link, but thats all it tells me.

[Blake P.]

I am sure they are aware of the "annoying" label they are earning. I am sure they will add an X to the boxes or accept a cookie to opt out of the previews.

[fewquid]

Personally, I like Snap. When performing general searches, I think it is very useful. Even though the preview is tiny, you can often get a better sense of whether the destination is worth looking at than you would get from text.

As for pop-up haters... It reminds me of arguments as why command lines are better than GUI's . Yes, all text is more streamlined, but is it more _useful_ for the _majority_ of people? I don't think so.

Besides, it's not as though it's unrelated advertising or something that remains on screen or otherwise has annoying properties. Yes, it pops up, but it's doing so in an attempt to help, and not in an MS Office Paperclip kind of way either.

But to keep everyone happy, an opt out is probably a good idea.

All that being said, I think it has less applicability in situations like this one where the link is provided by a trusted source. As someone else noted, if it's a link from you, we assume it's going to be of interest i.e. the link has already been "filtered" and is less of an unknown.

And that's my contrarian viewpoint for the day :-)

By the way, I seem to have some minor issues with your center column/css layout in IE 6 -- the text goes off the edge of the column. Anyone else have problems?

[Piers Fawkes]

i think it's superb. I put it on PSFK as soon as I saw it here. Maybe people read this site differently that PSFK. I suppose people come here time and time again to read every post almost. On PSFK it's different: People come to PSFK and scan the posts for content that is useful for them. When they find the right post, they read it. In the same way, people don't want to waste time by jumping away from PSFK - and snap provides that preview. Sure, it could provide a list below of related links to all the stores I have affiliate deals... bu I can wait :)

[Fraser]

Came back to comment after reading your second post on Snap.

Thumbs down. Agree with most of the issues already shared.

[Tracy A. Sheridan]

I also liked Snap at first glance, and was excited to put it up on my personal blog. However for me it took just two hours before disabling it, mainly because it annoyed *me* as a user/viewer of my own blog!

Final assessment: distracting, intrusive, and of little or no value to the user.

[Stewart Marshall]

I'm still in the space where I still like it. I implemented it on one of my sites, BC Floorball. Much like some people have commented I trust the links on the site, I installed snap for the same reason.

Looking at it now I'm beginning to wonder how an unreadable preview of a page helps me, it doesn't tell me anything useful to validate whether I should vist (unlike Fred's link to the snap site - which does!)

I think snap is interesting, but ultimately I suspect it won't have staying power.

Stewart

[Vijay]

Fred,

Its annoying, there is no use for us (readers) unless they give you a truck load of money for putting that widget there.

crunchtime

[ming666]

its gator 2.0. nuff said?

[christopher carfi]

nuke it.

[carl rahn griffith]

i have never really seen the point in it: what value does it add to the web-page experience?

it is an intrusive distraction on any web site. its use may be more relevant in the online ads world.

[Lewis Green]

Fred,

I don't know why anyone would be hyper about snap. It's pretty unobtrusive but also not very useful. Keep it or lose it. I don't think it either adds or subtracts from the links.

[Tom McGovern]

Fred, I love it, keep it!

Seriously, we appreciate the feedback from our critics. We have a lot sites and blogs where the feedback is overwhelming positive and some like yours where readers find it obtrusive. We take all the feedback to heart and are working improve the technology and experience.

We have a number of enhancements that will be released this week where we address much of the above negative feedback. These improvements give more power to the READER to make the decision on the previews. The changes include 1) making it clearer for the reader who hates it to off it without visiting our site 2) configuring the dwell time to trigger the preview so for those who read with a mouse pointer will not be bombarded with previews and 3) changing the size of the image so the user can have larger previews if they prefer. But the point is to let the reader who finds it annoying to kill it and preserve it for the users that like it and improve that experience.

I hope you will keep it on your blog thru that release (Thursday). Also, our entire company pours over the feedback we get and we would be happy to hear directly from anyone http://www.snap.com/about/feedbk.php

Tom

[ming666]

Tom:

i believe i understand of what use snap is to the blogger, especially the blogger that is trying to use his/her blog as a business or as a marketing tool for the business. i still don't get what's in it for the user, ie, blog visitor.

hopefully thursday's release will inform me.

[Deirdré Straughan]

I installed it on my site a month or so ago, but haven't got around to asking for reader feedback yet. My site is full of both internal and external links. One thing I like about Snap is that it previews only the external links, so a savvy reader will instantly see whether a link is going to get her more of me, or something else (and what kind of something else).