Done:
To Do:
Okay, so it’s not a huge comprehensive list of what I need to do, but it’s a start.
Archive for February 17th, 2007
Surprise, surprise. I’ve joined an internet majority, and that is the haters of Snap Preview Anywhere. Sure, its an appealing concept: Roll over a link and see an image popup in a small bubble of the site that the link points to. But not only is it annoying, web browser slowing; it’s just plain instrusive. I mean, sure it may be handy to some people, but you’re about to click the link, can’t you wait the whole 2 seconds for the page to load and look at the website? SPA claims it saves ‘wasted clicks’ and you can ‘look before you leap’. Why not leap, look and if you dont like it, leap back? I mean, there is a thing called the back button, maybe Snap users should try it someday. Probably 100% of the time when you hover over a link, you have the intention of clicking it, so why do you need to see a preview of what the site looks like of you want to see it. The Snap preview isn’t saving you a wasted click, it’s wasting you time. And to add to the annoyances list; usually you have to click a link several times before it works because of the Snap previews delaying the rendering time by loading it’s stupid javascript popup.
SPA is annoying for a few simple reasons, but the main one is distraction. I’m browsing a blog, and I move my mouse or scroll using the scroll wheel and happen to stop on a link. Bam! Instantly your concentration is taking from the article to the shiny bubble that has popped up. Doesn’t anybody understand this is losing them readership or taking attention away from what really matters - the content? I’ve seen shopping sites using Snap.
And even highly acclaimed bloggers such as Matt Mullenweg, the founder of Wordpress endorses the nonsense javascript widget. The same with TechCrunch.com. To me, Snap provides no functionality, just headaches. Whatever happened to the title, over even id elements in the link tag?
Blogging is about providing your opinions and winning over readers. Snap isn’t going to win you readers, if anything, it’s going to push them away, including myself because as you can tell, I’m writing this post because SPA pisses me off. I want to go to a blog and be able to read the content and click the links without being interrupted by a so-called ‘cool’, shiny gadget. Of course it’s a great example of how to gain attention of your links, but a very annoying one. Maybe someone should put the concept to better use and into a better form then an annoying javascript popup.
So if you’re like me and hate this damn thing, there are a few ways you can disable it:
In my opinion, a popup is a popup and any amount of cosmetics, Web2.0ness or site previews will change the fact that popups are blatantly annoying.
And just a small note to anyone using Snap previews, I won’t read your blog because of the reasons outlined in this post.
Please direct all complaints, abuse, ignorance or stupidity to my inbox or leave a comment below.
Technorati Tags: snap, preview, widgets, javascript, web annoyances
