Comments on: Snap Preview – Tell me What You Think

By: p1nk g33k

p1nk g33k — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:43:56 +0000

It’s a fad, which makes me hate it from the start.

“…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.)”

I would use it for those purposes, too. To *attempt* to avoid a bad site, but that will not always work. Also, I’m glad that the preview is not big enough for the reader to see the entire site. That’s something that worried me. I initially thought that Snap would drive away would-be visitors. Since they already saw a preview, what’s the point of actually clicking the link? I actually still think that it does. The visitor could decide that he just doesn’t like the way your site looks and decide not to visit; I do that sometimes.

By: MyBlogLog widget for Wordpress.com blogs -- One of the best web widgets available « //engtech - internet duct tape

Mon, 21 May 2007 23:08:55 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: iReader Preview Tool

iReader Preview Tool — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 04:07:51 +0000

[...] 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). [...]

By: Let’s Just Stop With Snap Preview Already - Healthy WebDesign - Developing and Building Successful Websites for Independent Professionals

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:37:18 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: poo » Blog Archive » Previews, a great thing (usually)

poo » Blog Archive » Previews, a great thing (usually) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:10:02 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: WordPress Wednesday: WordPress 2.1 and More at The Blog Herald

WordPress Wednesday: WordPress 2.1 and More at The Blog Herald — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:07:24 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: Snap Preview Anywhere: bad idea, dumb bloggers love it | The Montoya Herald

Snap Preview Anywhere: bad idea, dumb bloggers love it | The Montoya Herald — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 21:42:00 +0000

[...] 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! [...]

By: Marco Zuniga

Marco Zuniga — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 02:05:34 +0000

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.

By: volkan

volkan — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:36:19 +0000

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.

By: Technabob

Technabob — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 17:39:35 +0000

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.

By: Eduardo Maio

Eduardo Maio — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 18:04:19 +0000

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!

By: Hidden conspiracies » Blog Archive » Add preview on external links with Snap

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:40:05 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: The Scooby Group » Blog Archive » A cool tool for blogging

The Scooby Group » Blog Archive » A cool tool for blogging — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 14:07:22 +0000

[...] Snap Preview – Tell me What You Think [...]

By: Become a Consultant Blog >> Andrea the Consultant

Become a Consultant Blog >> Andrea the Consultant — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 07:54:05 +0000

Oddly enough, it works for some sites for me but not when I hover over links (in comments) to my own site.

By: Erica

Erica — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 04:50:21 +0000

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.

By: Dustin

Dustin — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 23:04:28 +0000

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.

By: Andy Beal

Andy Beal — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:35:23 +0000

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

By: Dario

Dario — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 20:20:11 +0000

Useful I will try it with http://www.businesshackers.com as I have many links to different economic websites…

By: Brandon Wood

Brandon Wood — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 19:55:59 +0000

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.

By: Brian Clark

Brian Clark — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 18:40:04 +0000

I do like it in the comments though. Is it possible to use it only there?