Instigator Blog - Latest Comments in Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Rosina — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:02:00 -0000

I thank the Lord for giving us the gift of brilliant preachers!

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

enars — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:19:30 -0000

I found one useful way to use Snap Preview - for Amazon product links. In the pop-up window you see the details of the product and text is readable. I left Snap Preview for my links exchange page so that visitors can get some impression of the websites listed. Otherwise I agree that it is not a good idea to use it anywhere - just for information that can be readable in the pop-up window.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Bush — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 05:59:22 -0000

This website is very nice and colorful too. Its nice to have something to show others where you attend church and to show all the smiling people filled of the goodness of the Lord. You have a wonderful website here. May God rich bless you always.p

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Ben Yoskovitz — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 21:03:08 -0000

Jimmy - a Google-hater! What?!?! *smile*

Thanks for stopping by and commenting...

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Jimmy — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 14:25:08 -0000

Thanks for the good and very constructive thoughts on Snap Preview! I recently wrote about this stuff as well after having been worked up by the "web 2.0-nessness" of the feature. Never have such a little thing caused me more headache. I found it very hard to decide whether to use the service or not but I ended up binning it (contrary to my statement in my initial post). The only thing that I still stand for in terms of reasons to use the service is that it isn't Google, but hey, that's just on principle.

Thanks for a great post well worth the read.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Ben Yoskovitz — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:53:45 -0000

Thanks for the tip - it's appreciated. And I'm sure people following this post will also find it useful.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

ubuntuguy — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 05:16:54 -0000

"You can get Snap Preview turned off by going to the Snap.com website and doing so. "

theres no need to do that. just add snap.com to your hosts file

127.0.0.1 spa.snap.com

that'll stop ALL snap previews on your local machine.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Ben Yoskovitz — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 20:58:26 -0000

Cheyne - thanks for the comment. I wonder if hover text would be more distracting though? And I wonder if anyone would click the preview - which would then create 2 clicks: 1 for the preview, 1 to go onward with the link...interesting idea though.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Cheyne Rood — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 15:14:43 -0000

Agreed - the first time I saw a snap preview I went..."huh, that's new" - but it hasn't provided any value added at the sites I've seen.

That said, I think Lorelle and Sandy have good insights in the comments above.

I could also see the concept being useful if it were executed differently. For example - instead of automatically popping up the tiny window, snap links could have a hover text of "Snap Preview available - right click" and, if the user responds accordingly, the preview pops up (larger, so its actually viewable). That might make it less distracting/less annoying.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Ben Yoskovitz — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:54:57 -0000

Francie - not all gadgets or widgets catch on, but many do and yes, generally speaking people are quick to adopt and then evaluate after. I think a big part of this is that these widgets are very easy to install. You hear about them, throw in some quick code and voila, you've got it. People evaluate after the fact, and then decide what to do. Again, most of them are easy to uninstall so "no harm, no foul" applies. And people want to evaluate what each new thing will do for them.

Paul - great thoughts, thank you. But what if the chick is ugly? No offense to anyone out there of course...but similarly, what if the site you're linking to is ugly? Are people still more likely to click over?

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

paul king — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:37:12 -0000

Yea Ben - I do think it's because people can see where the link is leading them. People think, "is this somewhere I want to go RIGHT NOW?" - often times you can decribe the product (in my case artist) in great detail - but usually the decision to click a link is a visual one. For instance, I can say "this girl can sing and she is HOT! check her out!" - and some would click to see... but even more would using Snap because you know where the link is leading... and visual is a good thing. I'm 2 times more likely to click a Snap or visual link than a text link - that's just me.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Francie — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:16:16 -0000

Well then, it's good to see there is some purpose for it. I had the same reaction as you, especially #2 (the Snap box getting in way of what I was reading on page).

I'm very new at blogging, so it's good to have my instincts validated :) Does this happen with all the new gadget software - getting applied too broadly, 'cause everyone wants to get on the bandwagon?
Thanks for the Snap synopsis, Ben.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Ben Yoskovitz — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 12:47:20 -0000

Sandy - thanks for the comment. I believe you can put Snap Preview Anywhere on specific links and not all of them, so in that case you may find some uses for it that are appropriate without overwhelming the user. Although I wonder then if you increase confusion by having the popups appear sometimes but not all the times.

Paul - I appreciate your feedback. I'm all for outbound links, so I think it's great feedback that you're saying it's increased that number...why do you think that's the case? Is it just a question of people getting a "feel" for where they're going, and if it looks visually appealing they're more likely to click?

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

paul king — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 01:56:45 -0000

Hey Ben,

I use Snap on my site and I love it. I own/operate a music site where most if not all of the links lead to a band/artist page of some type.

One thing that I found was the increase in the outgoing clicks (you might think "is that a good thing? having more people leave your site?" well, for what I'm doing, yeah) - in other words, it does it's job.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Sandy Renshaw — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:48:25 -0000

Hi Ben,

The way I find it useful is for long blog rolls. I'm a visual person, and remember what sites "look like" rather than the name.

Otherwise, on every page it's too much.

Good post.

Sandy

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Greg Balanko-Dickson — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 11:45:51 -0000

Hi Lorelle: that is a great point and a great use of this plug in.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Lorelle — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 10:36:59 -0000

The only "defense" I've found in the value of Snap Preview Anywhere is for sites which feature, specifically, links to web designs, Themes, and portfolio/graphic sites. Then the graphic thumbnail shown would influence the potential visitor and give a preview of the visual image.

Other than that, I've found beautiful content in ugly designs and ugly content in beautiful designs. Pretty doesn't mean much on the web when it doesn't have the information you need.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Ben Yoskovitz — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:16:15 -0000

Seems Andrew and Greg are both in agreement on the "so so" value of Snap Preview Anywhere.

Anyone want to defend it?

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Greg Balanko-Dickson — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 18:30:25 -0000

Thank goodness someone else is talking about this totally cool buy useless plugin/add on. I first ran across this at Duct Tape Marketing and commented then that "I don't get it." If it adds friction to the user experience it has to go.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Andrew Flusche — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 15:35:23 -0000

Ben, I love the post. I was an early adopter of Preview Anywhere. I thought it might add some pizazz to my blog.

Needless to say, I ditched it after a week or so. Funnily, this was even before the top bloggers started to complain about it. I just didn't see value to it, and I've been trying to simplify the blog overall.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Ben Yoskovitz — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:53:20 -0000

Robert - thanks for the feedback. I hope we hear from people that have benefited from Snap Preview Anywhere because I'm definitely curious about what everyone thinks...

My feeling is that it's new, cool and looks slick - so it caught on, but now more and more people will start evaluating its true usefulness.

Re: Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere

Robert Hruzek — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:21:01 -0000

I've been using Snap Preview on my own blog for about a month now (saw it at John Koetsier's Bizhack blog first), and I think I'm about ready to ditch it. I have the same conclusions as you: I really don't see the value, and it's distracting. Not good recommendations for any product, to say the least!