Written on December 17th, 2006 at 10:12 am by Darren Rowse
Snap Preview - Tell me What You Think
There are a number of tools that I’ve been meaning to test on my blogs over the past few months and so this weekend I’ve decided to get a few of them up and running.
The first one that you’ll notice I’m testing at ProBlogger is Snap. I’ve added it to my blogging tools page.
Put your cursor over any external links on any of my pages (except AdSense ads as far as I can see) and Snap will give you a preview of what you’ll see on that site before you actually go there (see below for an example).
I’m in two minds about this - while I can see some readers as enjoying it I suspect it’ll annoy others. So consider this a test and your opportunity to tell me how you find the user experience of the tool.
PS: Snap comes with a ’search’ tool which you can switch on or off. I’ve left it switched off at this point as I already have a search tool on my blog using Google’s AdSense tool.
The search uses Snap’s search engine tool which I suspect what they’ve developed this tool to promote.
Update: I think it’s fairly safe to assume that I’ll be removing these in the coming day or so. I won’t do it immediately to give other readers a chance to see them in action - but the overwhelming feedback to this point is that they are not working for a majority of readers (although as expected the reaction is divided).
I would consider leaving them active in the comments section though as I do like the idea of one of our comments below that they can be useful there (having said that I probably won’t). Feel free to keep having your say though!
Update 2: I’ve disabled this. Thanks all for the feedback.
70 Responses to “Snap Preview - Tell me What You Think”
James
December 17th, 2006 11:04 am
Hey cool Darren. I saw this on another site earlier this afternoon and wondered what it was. I can see it catering to the coolness factor of a site. Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what others think of it. I suppose some might consider it annoying but I can see instances where it might be nice to have a preview of the site that’s behind a link before it pops up on your work PC…
brem
December 17th, 2006 11:10 am
nice little gadget.
Shane
December 17th, 2006 11:14 am
I’ve seen this on several blogs before, but instantly assumed they were ads. Not until you mentioned they were for external links did I stop to actually look more at the popups.
With the availability of the back button in browsers, I personally don’t see why I’d have the need for a preview. It is neat, but don’t know if I’d use it, expecially when the popups cover text I’m trying to read next.
Regards
Cary
December 17th, 2006 11:14 am
Hmmm, I’m not much of a fan of it in the post sections, but it’s quite fun to use as you read people’s comments… you can see quick previews of their blogs : )
FrankB
December 17th, 2006 11:24 am
Hi Darren,
I, personally, find these previews a bit annoying. It’s not as annoying as those intellitxt in text adverts, but for people like me that love scrolling with their mouse wheel you sometimes pop these things up over the text you’re reading.
And I’m not sure where the added value is for me. I can’t read an excerpt of the linked site and I frankly don’t care too much about previewing their page layout. Might be useful in extreme cases, like generic adsense sites, but then I don’t think a webmaster/blogger who links to those sites, would use Snap.
From my perspective it’s just a gimmick or some fancy gag. Aside from that I noticed that on older posts the previews had long loading times what renders this completely useless.
Getting into your shoes I’m not sure what the added value for you is. It doesn’t generate money and IF a page is THAT cool, that the visuals are important I guess you’d just do a screenshot of it. That’ll take about 1 minute more of your time - when needed - once a month.
Hope this helps
Frank
Darren Rowse
December 17th, 2006 11:41 am
yeah - hadn’t thought about it from the perspective of comments sections - that is useful.
Frank - yeah - not sure what the value ad is for readers either.
Marina
December 17th, 2006 11:41 am
Not a fan … I trust that any links you provide are to quality sites, and since the preview is too small to see anything but a thumbnail of the layout, I don’t see what benefit it provides the reader here. (On sites of questionable integrity, it would be a great way to avoid spam-filled links, though.)
Darren Rowse
December 17th, 2006 11:43 am
yeah - that’s my worry with it too Marina. I wonder whether CTR to external sites will go up or down as a result of this. I actually would want it to go up as I’m keen to share the link love.
Carolyn Manning
December 17th, 2006 11:46 am
I’m not too crazy about it. It can get distracting, especially you read with the mouse in your hand and it strays over a link. It’s kinda cool to see blog previews, but it can definitely go into the ‘can live without’ category.
Stuart
December 17th, 2006 11:47 am
@ James - Coolness does not equate to usability. I guess if you want to be cool and annoy people then Snap is ideal. But if you want to give your readers a better information gathering experience then I don’t think Snap is quite the tool to use
Personally it annoys the crap out of me and does nothing more useful than make me immediately want to leave the site that uses it.
Darren Rowse
December 17th, 2006 11:49 am
i worry about it as I do quite a few external links in some posts (ie go down to my latest speedlinking on the main page and see it) and it can get quite annoying there.
Darren Rowse
December 17th, 2006 11:50 am
Carolyn - good point on the distraction front. It doesn’t really help with keeping people focused on your actual content :-)
Stuart
December 17th, 2006 11:51 am
And on another note about Snap - it seems to work with some affiliate advertising and you can can click through from the Snap pop-up to the site. I wonder if that carries your affiliate code over to the sponsor’s site or leaves it behind and loses you a sale?
Carolyn Manning
December 17th, 2006 11:53 am
If someone wants to visit another post, the preview make no difference. Right now, I’m leaning more toward ‘no socially redeeming value’.
anon4
December 17th, 2006 11:53 am
i really like them actually
Markus
December 17th, 2006 11:54 am
I don’t like them. It’s the same with textsense and all the stuff wich opens a layer. I never click on those links.
Andrew Flusche
December 17th, 2006 12:01 pm
Darren,
I tried this on my humble blog a couple weeks ago. I thought it got kind-of annoying, so I took it off. Since then, I’ve seen it on some other blogs and truly been annoyed. It definitely distracts from content quite a bit.
Personally, I’m a fan of accurate “title” attributes on links. That should be enough to tell the user what you’re headed to.
By the way, have you thought about a “subscribe to comments” feature?
mark
December 17th, 2006 12:05 pm
Warning if the site had popups, malware, or some truly value added info might be useful, but simply to show a thumbnail pic seems rather goofy.
As other people mentioned I don’t see the point and I find them annoying..
Martin
December 17th, 2006 12:14 pm
Definitely not a fan - I think they get in the way and are quite annoying. I think a good anchor text should be enough.
I don’t really see any point in just seeing a mini screenshot of a page - it adds nothing to the usability from a readers perspective, imho.
Darren - I think the masses have spoken … be rid of it. ;-)
Andrey Milyan
December 17th, 2006 12:24 pm
Hi Darren,
Andy Beal uses this one on his blog down at Marketing Pilgrim. Personally, I don’t like it. There are usually a ton of links on any blog and just by scrolling down the page, you are bound to open at least 10 snap preview windows. Most of the time they block the content. So I find this tool counterproductive.
Andrey
Susan Borgas
December 17th, 2006 12:42 pm
I also have seen this on other blogs. I am right handed and find if there is a lot of links on the right hand side it gets annoying with this pop up happening as I move the mouse around a lot in that area. Because your links are on the left hand side I don’t notice it so much. It is a nifty idea though.
Bob
December 17th, 2006 1:00 pm
I’m with most of the others…. I don’t think it adds any value. I was thinking about using Snap a week or so ago, and decided it really didn’t offer any value.
Chris
December 17th, 2006 1:03 pm
So what, exactly, do you *expect* the more minimal guy to say? ;-)
I think this is a cute technology. But the user value is primarily in its novelty, which — at the advertised 12,000 site additions in the last month — is going to wear thin sometime next week.
The Snap previews break my personal rule about no unrequested media. It’s not as bad as an autoloading midi or MP3, but this sort of feature belongs on the user side. It would make a better browser plug-in.
I nearly named these previews a couple weeks back when I wrote an article about things your blog doesn’t need. They’re going to junk-up a lot of pages, I’m afraid.
I’m glad you threw them open for discussion, Darren.
Clark
December 17th, 2006 1:14 pm
It’s fun to try new things but I can’t see much value in this for your readership. ‘Gee-whiz’ quickly tires.
Dale
December 17th, 2006 1:28 pm
Personally, I find it annoying and unhelpful.
best,
Dale
Luke Meshios
December 17th, 2006 1:32 pm
Maybe have a ‘lite’ version of this site on http://www.problogger.net/lite where it’s off
and http://www.problogger.net where it’s oon ?
Shaymus
December 17th, 2006 2:00 pm
I used it for a couple of weeks and liked it….especially thought it was a good idea for people to have a glimpse of what your links look like….I changed my layout a bit and didnt put it back on….Yesterday I got an email from them asking why I wasnt using it anymore…and if there was a problem with it that they could help with…..Good Service :)
~~Melissa
December 17th, 2006 2:02 pm
I put it on my blog to give it a whirl. I like it as a preview tool for internal links (good for navigation since my site includes sequential how-to instructions in different posts) and blogrolls. I’m glad it can be turned off for individual links as desired. I can see how it would annoy some but I like to look before I click so overall I like it on other sites.
On a side note, I notice SNAP previews show up on my Sitemeter stats–bulking up the numbers.
HART (1-800-HART)
December 17th, 2006 2:12 pm
I’ve had “snap” on my HART-Empire site since Dec 4th and quite frankly, I like them and am thinking of putting them up on all of the sites (except the ones heavy in Ezine articles).
I like that snap as it shows the current site, shows it is available and not a splog or ad or fake link .. you can see commenter’s blog or website, you can preview links in sidebars or blogrolls .. and it kind of reminds me of some other sites that you don’t have to click your mouse to see what’s going on in the site.
It’s quite easy to disable the snap - just click the question mark and the first link you see, and you’ll get no more snap. I can’t believe reading people who claim they will ban from reading sites (like Problogger) just because of this .. SHAME ON YOU
Michelle
December 17th, 2006 2:57 pm
Yea, I saw this a couple weeks ago and at first thought “Wow, this is great, I want this latest-greatest gadget for my blog” but then after seeing it around at a few places it quickly became annoying. The windows block my view, popping up without an invitation and sometimes randomly obtrusive if I happen to let my cursor linger unattended. Perhaps the worst part of it is they don’t give me information that contributes to my cyber happiness.
If I want a view of the link I click, I don’t need to “up periscope” on every link on the page.
My two cents.
Michael
December 17th, 2006 2:57 pm
It’s extremely annoying. Chris nailed it above — it makes more sense as a user-side browser plugin.
Koby
December 17th, 2006 3:05 pm
I added it to my site after seeing it on TechCrunch. I think it does wonders for trackbacks and website links in comments. I’m not completely sure how I like it on regular links inside my posts though.
Hoboken411
December 17th, 2006 3:30 pm
I find them quite useful. Been using it for several weeks. When you write an article, you can selectively determine when to use the snap preview and when not to. The web 2.0 factor gives your site a more modern feel, and I’d think users wouldn’t mind seeing a preview before they click the link. I do, however, see that OVER-using it (like in a sidebar) is annoying and obtrusive.
Another cool feature of Snap Preview is that if you link to an image, you can add “looks” to multiple images without clogging your layout or content. Snap intelligently fills the preview box with the image, regardless of size. So it helps a lot when you just want to quickly reference many images without wasting bandwidth.
Lastly, I’ve tried user-side browser plugins, such as Cooliris. And those are even more annoying, I de-activated the plugin in Firefox. While it was neat for a little while, I thought it added too much overhead to my browsing experience.
I say KEEP IT, but use it selectively.
Good work as always!
Doug Karr
December 17th, 2006 3:52 pm
I had it for a couple weeks and eventually took it down. The issue was when I had many links that didn’t require a preview (example: a menu bar). I recommended ot the snap team that they add the ability to allow an array of divs for inclusion and/or exclusion. I haven’t tested to see whether on not this could be done external to their scripting… someday when I have some time!
Regards,
Doug
niran sabanathan
December 17th, 2006 3:53 pm
I wasn’t sure what those things popping up were, but I sure as heck didn’t want to spend time reading the little popups. If I want a preview I can go the side anyway - just load it into a tab and still keep reading. But, to have a little picture pop up about a site I might think about going is very disturbing. Breaking the flow of thought that you have spent an effort to create is the worst sin of writing — like the scrolling markee or the flashing words of websites gone by– once the flow is broken, it is hard to get back into rythm and there is the real potential of losing a reader.
Arun
December 17th, 2006 4:14 pm
umm.. I don’t think I like this one. Feels intrusive.
Ian Robertson
December 17th, 2006 5:22 pm
Darren, I like most things on your site, but this isn’t one of them, I’ll have to agree with most and say that this tool is more of an annoyance than an useful tool.
It seems very amateurish and something I’d expect on a teenagers blog.
Thejesh GN
December 17th, 2006 6:07 pm
Personally. I didn’t like it. Its annoying.
Russ
December 17th, 2006 6:34 pm
Scrap it. It just gets in the way of everything. Simply seeing what a page looks like won’t help me decide if I want to click on the link or not. It serves no purpose, and just gets in the way of the content.
All Evolve
December 17th, 2006 6:39 pm
I used Snap on my blogs for a bit, but even *I* became annoyed by it. The Snap previews are small enough to not be able to really tell what features are on the linked page and do just enough to be annoying. I say get rid of them.
I saw that someone else said they didn’t like Cooliris, but I think it’s better because it’s user-side. It allows users to decide if they want previews or not by installing the Cooliris extension. I like Cooliris, because it gives you a fully functional preview without navigating away from the source page.
Michael Moncur
December 17th, 2006 6:48 pm
I have to agree with everyone who says it adds no value. This is one of those “geek features” that people love to add to their web pages:
- page counters
- “what I’m listening to now” sidebars
- blogrolls (for the most part)
Features like this seem cool to bloggers, and they’re great to show off to other bloggers, but they do nothing for your visitors. Snap is another one of those. It looks cool, but it solves a problem that didn’t need to be solved.
Some kind of textual detail about a link you were about to click might be nice - if there wasn’t already enough context - but the pictures are just geek eye candy with no real value.
It also clutters pages with unnecessary JavaScript, annoys readers (I had several of these pop up unintentionally while reading ProBlogger - just because I move over a link doesn’t mean I’m interested in it) and reminds everyone of IntelliTXT ads, which already have a bad reputation.
Alan Oak
December 17th, 2006 10:01 pm
I’m glad you’re taking down thos pop-ups. On my Mac, I can’t read any of the text in the popups — too small — they just annoy me. I hate popup ads on other sites too.
Ajay D'Souza
December 17th, 2006 10:34 pm
If your using WordPress please check out my plugin
Everton
December 17th, 2006 11:52 pm
I used these for a week or two as they looked ‘cool’ but then they started to really bug me as they tended to get in the way of actually trying to click links! They also started appearing on top of ads, which given the clicking issue was really bad in my view.
Pewari
December 18th, 2006 12:41 am
Have to say, I actively dislike ANY type of pop ups - and these in particular as they’re EVERYWHERE. Mainly because I don’t want to have to think too hard about where I leave my mouse while I read a page - so inevitably they become distracting or obscure what I’m trying to read.
Sorry, big thumbs down from me.
Simon Gould
December 18th, 2006 2:06 am
Annoying pop ups that block the view of the web page i’m viewing and to get rid of it i have to move the mouse where i may end up over another link where another annoying pop up occurs grrrr!
It’s safe to say I don’t like them :)
UKStevieB
December 18th, 2006 2:57 am
I was among those thinking of adding this feature to my site, but after reading some of the comments here I am beginning to wonder if my blog would be better off without it.
Thanks for running this question by us Darren, it has given me some food for thought.
Removing Snap Link Preview Pop-up | Marketing Pilgrim
December 18th, 2006 3:36 am
[…] I have been meaning to ask you whether or not you found it useful or annoying. It looks like Darren Rowse asked the same thing of his readers and most of the comments are negative. So, assuming that you might think the same, I plan on removing the feature this week. […]
Darren Johnston
December 18th, 2006 3:43 am
I’d have to say Darren, that I agree with those that say this is a distraction. A nice concept, but it definitely steals the user’s attention. Although, this might be better suited to your Links section, I would definitely avoid using this in your posts to reduce the annoyance factor.
Chris Lodge
December 18th, 2006 3:55 am
Hey Darren,
Personally I don’t like them on blogs, for all the reasons above. But as someone mentioned, it’s very good for comment checking - for that reason have you seen an add-on for Firefox called ‘Cooliris’?
Similar idea, but much more powerful - mouse over a link & the Cooliris logo appears-mouseover this & view the page in a Cooliris window and interact with it as normal. Move the mouse away from the Cooliris window & it disappears.
I find it really speeds up replying to Wordpress Comments, and it’s very good for viewing the contents of questionable links. Best of all you can turn it off & on as you need it with one click.
Very cool.
Brian Clark
December 18th, 2006 4:38 am
I think this is one of those things that sounds cool on paper and upon first experience, but soon becomes a usability annoyance.
I’ve started seeing this everywhere all of a sudden. It’s actually a bit jarring when one pops up just by accidently scrolling over link text.
This just doesn’t seem to be something that is in the reader’s best interest, imo.
Brian Clark
December 18th, 2006 4:40 am
I do like it in the comments though. Is it possible to use it only there?
Brandon Wood
December 18th, 2006 5:55 am
I’ve never been a big fan of Snap Preview. To me it’s just distracting, and annoying when it pops up every time I accidentally roll over a link. If I really want to see a site that is being linked to, I’ll just click the link and find out for myself.
Dario
December 18th, 2006 6:20 am
Useful I will try it with http://www.businesshackers.com as I have many links to different economic websites…
Andy Beal
December 18th, 2006 7:35 am
Darren, Snap just emailed me with details on modifying the preview so you can decide which links use the pop-up. Here’s the link to the FAQ that explains how.
http://www.snap.com/about/spa_faq.php
Dustin
December 18th, 2006 9:04 am
I stared at this for a few seconds. I was putting my cursor over links and thing was happening. Then I read your updates. I guess I wont be trying it.
Erica
December 18th, 2006 2:50 pm
I have also tried similar plugins like Cool Iris in the past — what I found is that they are more annoying than convenient. I have several extensions currently installed in Firefox — over the last year I have only consistently used a hand full of them.
Top favorites for the year: BackPack Extension, CSSViewer, Colorzilla, Firebug, & Showcase.
That said, I would be interested in being able to modify which links an extension like Cool Iris or Snap can preview. That may make it a more practical addition to my extension arsenal.
Become a Consultant Blog >> Andrea the Consultant
December 18th, 2006 5:54 pm
Oddly enough, it works for some sites for me but not when I hover over links (in comments) to my own site.
The Scooby Group » Blog Archive » A cool tool for blogging
December 19th, 2006 12:07 am
[…] Snap Preview - Tell me What You Think […]
Hidden conspiracies » Blog Archive » Add preview on external links with Snap
December 19th, 2006 1:40 am
[…] Added snap to my blog today. So, that means you can have a preview of how the external links that I am referring to you looks like.I first saw this on Techcrunch and I like the way they show the site being referred to anywhere in the blog post.After all, it’s free anyway, so why not?And to implement it into my blog, I only need to add a few javascript into the head section of my blog. Very simple, isn’t it?Or you can just install a wordpress plugin. Find out more about Snap, and try it on your blog, you will like it :p […]
Eduardo Maio
December 19th, 2006 4:04 am
Im glad you’ve removed them. I found them intrusive and they “slow down” the user experience because some thumbnails take forever to load…
Anyway, great experience I must say, I enjoyed reading all the feedback and knowing how intruse or usable they are and what people think about these type of pop-ups!
Technabob
December 20th, 2006 3:39 am
I had them on my Blog for about 3 weeks now, and I’ve gotten the same feedback. It seems that the novelty wore of pretty quickly, and most people found them almost as annoying as contextual inline ads.
Bye bye, Snap.
volkan
December 21st, 2006 3:36 pm
Right,
It is almost as annoying as pop-ups for blogs (imho).
However there are places which makes sense using SPA.
I use it currently in our beta ( http://tinyurl.com/y9wcbn ) web2.0 app. And people are pretty happy about it.
Some comments (translated from Turkish)
“Thanks for the extension, it’s a great ease to see what a site looks like before I actually visit it.”
“… by the way I really liked the site tooltip thing…”
“… now the site is more dynamic than ever.”
I don’t know, it’s may be because we attach SPA script dynamically **after** all content loads. Hence it does not have a negative impact on user wait time
(
there’s more info for ajax geeks on how to do it here:
http://tinyurl.com/yzo2bc
)
So, I guess, it depends on the context of your site / web application.
Cheers and happy new year.
Marco Zuniga
January 2nd, 2007 12:05 pm
Hi Darren:
Actually, I was evaluating to include the Snap Preview feature in my blog, but I was not sure about that.
It is easy to include the feature, but the traffic overload and the annoying windows troubled me.
Your post and the valuable comments of your users convinced me. Simple is best. The readers of my blog are looking for good content, not fancy forms or bells and whistles.
Happy new year and thank you very much for your advices.
Best regards …
Marco.
Snap Preview Anywhere: bad idea, dumb bloggers love it | The Montoya Herald
January 7th, 2007 7:42 am
[…] The main page for S.P.A. is covered with lots of praise from bloggers who love the service, but let’s face it: bloggers are not users. It’s one thing to assume that your users will like S.P.A., but it’s another to actually ask users what they think. If any gimmick web service advertises approval from people like Mike Arrington, Scott Beale, and Ryan Carson, let’s face it… that says nothing to me. I care what my readers say, and I can get that right here in the comments. Darren Rowse at ProBlogger took the time to do as such, and the majority of users agreed that S.P.A. was a bad addition. I think if more bloggers did the same, they would find that S.P.A. is a bad idea. After all, users know best! […]
WordPress Wednesday: WordPress 2.1 and More at The Blog Herald
January 24th, 2007 4:07 pm
[…] Snap Preview Anywhere was released last week on WordPress.com blogs, a feature unappreciated and frustrating for serious bloggers and Internet users, but an appreciated gimmick for the easily amused and impressed. ;-) Still, it’s amazing how vocal the public opinion has been against Snap Preview and other link popups. Some of the top bloggers have given this a try and passed on it. […]
poo » Blog Archive » Previews, a great thing (usually)
January 27th, 2007 4:10 am
[…] However, you can really only see the basic page layout, you can’t possibly make out the text and it can be annoying if you’re scrolling through a page and you get what is essentially a pop-up. There have been negative comments on it as well, you’ll see a good summary of the bad points in these posts. […]
Let’s Just Stop With Snap Preview Already - Healthy WebDesign - Developing and Building Successful Websites for Independent Professionals
February 1st, 2007 12:37 am
[…] Darren Rowse at ProBlogger disabled it and he’s certainly a good lead to follow. Darren Barefoot’s Not Feeling It. The Montoya Herald says, It’s a bad idea, dumb bloggers love it (though I can’t support the name calling). Lorelle has even gone so far as to publicly apologize to her readers for having used it. Others who began are disabling it as well. […]
iReader Preview Tool
February 21st, 2007 2:07 pm
[…] This tool is a little like Snap (which I tried for less than 24 hours here on ProBlogger - but took down after many complaints) but instead of showing you a tiny screen capture of where a link on a website leads - iReader lets you preview it’s content in text and as a little list (and don’t we love a good list). […]
MyBlogLog widget for Wordpress.com blogs -- One of the best web widgets available « //engtech - internet duct tape
May 22nd, 2007 9:08 am
[…] Anywhere widget it was disabled by most major blogs after just a short trial because users hate it (problogger, johnchow, lorelle, digital inspiration, a VC, instigator, ). NOTE: Readers can disable Snap […]
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