What is Digg?76 Comments
- NealV, on 10/12/2007, -0/+41Ugh, they're almost as bad as those stupid pop-up adds that links to random words in blog stories. They're annoying for the same reasons, plus they're ads!
- unicornhunter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39It's like flash intros..they look nice but are good for nuthin.
- eolite, on 10/12/2007, -2/+36You can disable them here : http://real.snap.com/about/spa_faq.php?disable_spa=1
- bit2bit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18It's just useless and annoying...
- sherwinn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I HATE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- mark1372, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10ContentLink popups are just as bad, and plus, they take forever and max out your processor. Stupid, stupid ad whores.
- fivefires, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10If you clear your cookies, you'll have to "deactivate" all over again. I've been using Adblock to rid Firefox of SPA's nonsense: http://spa.snap.com/*
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10@"Snap's preview anywhere gizmo is ruining the reading experience for millions of people. Its intrusive, obstructive and unuseful in almost every respect and use case"
Amen to that brother. digg += 100 - Shawnosaurus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I had no idea they were so disliked. They never bothered me any so I had them turned on in my site. Was just a feature that seemed harmless. Turned them off now.
I'm glad this got dugg otherwise I wouldn't have known they generate hate =) - smacksy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I close blogs that have this "snap preview". Immediately. Without reading anymore.
- snowedin07, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Absolutely useless!
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Well, you probably were very cautious to avoid the hotspots on your blog with your mouse. Now, imagine if you didn't know where the hotspots were, and you're reading something that has caught your attention, and sort of subconsciously moving your mouse over to the scroll bar, when suddenly BANG! this big booger pops up right in the middle of what you're trying to read.
That's what it's like for most people. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Techcrunch - are you listening?!!!
- tastycheese, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8No.
- cleverboy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7LOL. "bloggers with the self-restrait of a magpie in a sparkly-things factory". Oh, that's rich. And so true. Only reason its not on my blog, is because the ***** didn't work right.
- sruffelman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6You are absolutely right. SPA is very oboxious when you are a person who likes to highlight as you read along. I advocate its destruction.
- canadianguy33, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5ha that's the first site that came to mind as soon as I read snap preview.
Why the hell anyone thinks it's useful is beyond me. - HalBSure, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Add me to the list. The way I see it, I am reading your blog/site/whatever to be entertained/informed/whatever at my convenience. The second I become inconvenienced, I move on.
- raiderj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4OMG! So that's what those things are. I can't stand them either - and now I know how to disable them!
- WiseElben, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Those stupid snap thingies aren't even readable most of the time... It is pointless, a waste of eye movement, scripting abilities, bandwidth, and many many other things.
- bieber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Worse yet, I randomly double click to select paragraphs and pages. A lot. Like, constantly while reading. I don't know why, but it can cause big problems with ***** like that.
- SniperX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4have all the self restraint of a...WHAT!?? Damn you and your efforts to force me to rtfa.
- richstyles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It'll be nice to see them gone.
Funny that the disable feature requires you to sign up and establish a cookie with them. Looks like a no win situation for the average joe. - insomniacal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You are dead right. I have a WordPress-hosted blog, and when they rolled out Snap and I saw it at work on my blog, I immediately dug through the preferences to find where to turn it off. Snap is ugly, annoying, pestersome -- not much better than a pop-up ad. Thank you for writing this -- hopefully you'll convince more people to shut it down.
Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD. - 022A, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"I disagree. When someone links to a lot of stuff, I don't want to click off of their page over and over and head back, it takes me out of the flow. I've found that snap lets me see a quick shot of whats up at the site they're referencing and it helps me to decide quickly if I want to jump over to it."
1.) Use tabs.
2.) Read better writers, if someone can't summarize in a way that the links aren't immediately necessary then he isn't very good in the first place.
3.) Make sense. Either you need to know/understand what's on the linked page or you don't. The only thing you can see in a tiny preview panel is layout. Unless that specifically is the topic, the preview is worthless.
4.) You're that 1 in 10,000 guy that thinks he enjoys the dumb ***** that everyone despises and thereby keeping spam and the like profitable. Pat yourself on the back. - tastycheese, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Use tabbed browsing, *****.
- FushBuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Add me to list of Snap haters. Just hovering my cursor over the link and looking at the url is enough for me to decide if I want to visit that other site. Snap slows down my doing that and sometimes I accidently brush the cursor over a snap link and that prevents me from scrolling page down while Snap insists on loading.
- aidanf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3More reasons not to use Snap Preview: http://www.aidanf.net/reasons-not-to-use-snap-preview
- Jakerius, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I've been noticing these everywhere lately, god I hate these.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2When I first saw this feature on Ask.com, I thought it was a great idea. Until I used it.
Between mouseover and pop-up, there is a 5-10 second lag which is simply infuriating. If I can click the link, look at it, and go back, all in less time than it takes for the preview to load, it is a waste of time. - JasonATSnap, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Hello Diggers,
My name is Jason Fields, I am Product Evangelist for Emerging Technology for Snap.com and Snap Preview Anywhere (aka SPA) blog widget. I wanted to address some of the fodder that has been circulating in the blogosphere and now Digg about the usefulness of our product.
In a nutshell, our product is intended to enable users to '"look before leaping", saving many people a wasted click. I will however be the first to admit that this is a product that some people don’t like, and this is why we have made sure to include a simple method to opt-out for those who don’t like it.
While there are certainly others who agree with some of the comments here, there are literally thousands of people signing up for SPA every day AND we have served more than 100+ million previews since the launch of the product – and all of this for free.
We are improving SPA almost every week with features aimed at giving site owners and end-users greater control in how to implement (and indeed "if" to implement) and interact with SPA. In the weeks to come, we will be:
(1) Making improvements that will reduce the confusion about whether a link is SPA enabled, or not.
(2) Make it much easier for a site owner to point SPA to a particular type of link.
(3) Allow the site owner to totally customize a link, image, css, etc.
We here at Snap are acutely aware of the issues described in these comments and we have several enhancements scheduled to release over the coming couple of weeks that, in different ways, will address them. Rest assured that your viewpoints have been informing, and will continue to inform, the ongoing development of this product.
Thanks for your time and attention.
Jason Fields
Product Evangelist, Emerging Technology
www.Snap.com - Robotsu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It would be useful to have a separate Technology sub-heading titled, "blogging" or "media" or something that similarly groups these kinds of articles.
- datter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yay for common sense, I've always found that snap nonsense annoying... very much in the same way popup ads are annoying.
- mrRB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Oh Snap!
- mikepanic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have a snap preview on one of my blogs but it is only actuve for teh RSS icon in the top right corner of the page. A lot of people still don't know what that is for and the day after I installed it 30 people picked up the feed.
- goinhome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's my blog and I'll do what I want to, do what I want to, do what I want to. You can do it too if it happens to you.
If you don't like a blog because of Snap usage, move on. Yes, it may be a flash-in-the-pan, but some feel that it's gotta be used to see how it works. And, it takes time to figure readership preference. The majority of comments here have only convinced me that people who have a gripe are those who fill out survey forms as well. Like me. Here. Now. - raccettura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Finally. I hate these stupid things. Just bloat I don't want/need.
- thesimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i was just thinking like 20 mins ago "these ***** things piss me off no end" :D glad someone agrees
- FushBuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That too. What's the point of a visual preview when absolutely nothing is legible in the tiny little window?
- mhusson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1try google browser sync
- component, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had it installed for 1 hour :-) actually, i'd like to swipe the code for a site I'm building. Anyone know of an easy drag/drop or a WP plugin that does the same thing? I know it's javascript.
Oh -- and I'm still cracking-up on the "Oh Snap!" comment directly above. {it forces an image of Biz Markie in the Beethoven wig.} - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I show this in my adblock list from like a year ago. Therefore, I must have been pissed then. *shrug*
- Chillbo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Agreed - what a terrible 'feature'. I don't normally block content but..I block them using the following (can be used for Adblock or Blocked Sites in Opera, Hosts...)
http://*.snap.com/*
I also block these:
http://*.contentlink.com/*
http://*.contera.com/*
http://*.intellitxt.com/* - peterbe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I too think they're annoying. It would have been different if it was hyperlinks to images that you got previews of.
- Grassmunk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hahaha, i thought this article was talking about how bloggers (on digg most of the time) will write a short 2 - 3 line "article" which just links to the real article im looking for and i thought 'whoa, someone's blogging about what i hate most about the blogosphere'.
- aidanf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can't believe so many sites have adopted this technology without thinking through the usability implications.
- dutter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think you mean kontera not contera here.
- engtech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can't believe they're trying to build a company around something like this.
(ok, their bread and butter is image search... but who knows them as anything but the annoying snap preview guys?) - noah45, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Jakob Nielsen would disapprove...probably.
- MikeEast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Finally we can vote to determine what the world thinks about this thing:
http://www.digg.com/design/Do_you_like_Snap_Preview_Anywhere -
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