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I’ve Removed Snap’s Previews As Well

I removed Snap’s previews from here ? Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger Scoble says that he removed Snap’s previews from his blog and I removed them from my blog today as well. Although I really like the idea of Snap’s widgets and think that it gives people a much better view into sites that I link out to, I just got tired of what seemed like a lot of negative criticism about it.

If you really liked Snap on my blog feel free to chime in on the comments of this thread and maybe I’ll add it back. They do have a way to disable Snap previews, but most people don’t intuitively get this.

So vote in the comments. Put Snap back up or kill it for good.

41 Replies to “I’ve Removed Snap’s Previews As Well”

  4. I think that if people like them, they should grab one of the many Firefox ext that do the same thing. They also tend to load up a whole lot faster.

  5. Kill it.

    It’s useless.

    If I want to follow a link, I’ll know by what you say, not by a tiny preview that doesn’t really give you much info anyway.

  6. “They do have a way to disable Snap previews, but most people don’t intuitively get this.”

    Could that be because it’s not so intuitive to have to go to snap.com (with no instruction) and get a cookie from their help page that disables their pop-ups? (And having to go back when the cookies are deleted.) And I only knew this because Lifehacker.com had a post about it today.

    Ridiculous.

  8. I’m against the snap previews. They’re distracting, irritating, trigger by accident all the time, and provide no useful information.

    The opt-out functionality is ridiculous. I shouldn’t have to opt out of this stuff.

    I agree with a lot of the points brought forward about them in this article:

    http://performancing.com/node/5721

  9. It’s not really my cup of tea, but I can understand why people would like it. Snap should come up with a browser plugin that people can use instead, so that people can opt in, instead of digging around on the net for the cookie in order to opt out.

  12. Thomas,

    I wanted to thank you again for taking the time and effort to give Snap Preview Anywhere a try on your site.

    I personally thought it was a wonderful experience and gave a glimpse into the visual scent of each of your hand picked links (not to mention your amazing photos on Zooomr!)

    We are committed to making SPA a useful feature for both the site owner and end user.

    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) Making it much easier for a site owner to point SPA to a particular type of link

    (3) Enabling the site owner to totally customize a link, image, css, etc.

    Rest assured that these various viewpoints have been, and will continue to, inform the ongoing development of this product.

    I hope that when we roll out some of these enhancements in the coming weeks you will reconsider implementing Snap Preview Anywhere on your site.

    Jason Fields
    Product Evangelist, Emerging Technology
    http://www.Snap.com

  13. Personally, I thought the Snap preview was a nice idea, but it just needed some refinement.

    If there was a little ‘div’ in the corner of your screen that unfolds saying, “Link preview here” or something, that might be nice – but hovering over my mouse makes me want to shake the damn thing away.

    Something about stuff happening in and around my mouse area that gets a rise out o’ me hackles. 🙂

    Just my two cents. Good on you to listen to user feedback. 😉

  14. Thomas-

    I can’t resist commenting on Snap Preview Anywhere (SPA) any longer! First, I echo Jason’s appreciation of your giving SPA a try. We’re trying to make it better just as fast as we can, and really try to listen to what our users want.

    Yet, I wish I could also show you, and all your readers, the ton of really positive comments we get about SPA every day. Many, many people really find the “look before you leap” benefit that SPA and Snap.com offer to be really useful. Perhaps not for all links and all situations, but that’s why it comes with only the external links turned on as a default. And, at the same time, we’re working hard in making SPA more “sensitive” to the specific link and context in which it appears. We have some really cool things on the roadmap which address the above.

    Unfortunately, the great many very satisfied users don’t take the time to express their satisfaction. Such is life.

    Thanks once again for trying Snap out and I hope you’ll revisit the decision in the not too distant future.

    Best regards,
    Fred Walti
    COO
    Snap.com

  16. I found them quite annoying. But if there’s a way to disable them, I’m more than willing to do that. But it’s not obvious to me how to do it. Whatever it is, it should be right in the pop-up window.

    Andy Frazer

  17. Snap previews helped me get to items faster and I got accustomed to using it right away. Faster , better for me…

  18. I hated ’em too. Never could understand what use they provided. The snapshot was way too small to be worth anything anyway. Damn annoying things.

  19. I disabled them through the Snap web site specifically because I encountered them while reading Tech Crunch and thomashawk.com. They were supremely distracting. The pop ups cut way down on usability (expected link behaviors) by and obscuring text while you drag your mouse across the screen in normal page progressions.

    And the usable information you received from the pop up itself wasn’t nearly as compelling or useful as good written contextual information on the link itself. (Which is a dying art form on the web in and of itself.)

    Vote for, Mitch Fatel… I mean Kill them.

  21. What would be ideal (and relatively easy to program in JavaScript) is to make this a client-side feature.

    Therefore, whoever wants it can use it and whoever doesn’t want it doesn’t have to use it.

  22. Snap is a very nice gimmik. It detracts more than it offers though, and this is the same reason I didn’t like it (and said so much) on A VC, when Fred had it up.

  24. i think the snap previews are helpful.

    it is not that i don’t trust your judgement when offering me a link… it is the fact that i have very little time on my hands… and therefore i really appreciate the visual cue that the little preview offers. it’s kinda like time-shifting on tivo!

    command line or GUI? put me down for the latter please.

  26. They were great when I wanted to preview a link, and possibly not visit it.

    However, it sucks when I accidentally moved my mouse over a link. It is extremely annoying to have one often pop-up and cover a bit of text I was otherwise reading.

    If anyone at Snap.com reads this, I would strongly prefer either a little image that shows the preview when clicked on or the preview window displaying in the sidebar. But until then, I vote NO.

  27. Incredibly annoying. Until I added their JavaScript to my AdBlock blacklist – no more snap for me on any site.

    On second thought, they could be marginally useful if limited to blogrolls. But I’m not going back.

  29. i’m fairly surprised that someone as visually talented as yourself fails to realize just how annoying and intrusive the snap previews are.

    i’m not talking about technology — they’re simply the wrong vibe for blogs and most web sites.

    the disruption to the screen and reading experience versus the actual information conveyed is completely off.

    i suggest you do a little research into interactive and information design to round out your other impressive skills.

    it will likely help you fix some of the same problems plaguing Zoomr as well.

  30. I like the Snap previews. I like getting a glimpse of where a link would take me; it helps me to make a more informed decision.

    And for those who don’t like the previews, it so easy to disable (and NO, you don’t have to go to Snap’s site to do it). You just click “options” on any preview bubble, and from there you can opt-out of the preview for the one site you are on, or all sites.

    So to me, leaving it running on your site gives me the option. Taking it off your site takes away my choice. I’d like to see it back.

  32. Put’em back for the whingers, but, in the post where you announce “they’re baack”, give a detailed explanation of how to turn them off. The folks at the far right end of the bell curve find them annoying.

  33. Do not put them back.

    They launched it way too soon, and I’m surprised so many sites added them.

    There wasn’t any easy way to close the damn thing. There should have been an
    x to click.

    I never clicked on options because I usually just wanted to get rid of the damn thing (often by going to someone else’s site who didn’t have them).

    Even a detailed post on how to opt out would work.

    As has been pointed out, there are firefox extensions which do the same thing better if people want a preview.

  34. Sorry a detailed post on how to opt out would not work.

    Not everyone would see it even if it were linked permanently from the sidebar.

  36. let snap burn in hell! so annoying!
    in my old slow performance pc (is this one, the only one), the only way to read your blog without stress is via feed

  40. I agree with the annoying nature of SPA in general. There is one instance where I do find them useful. In a blog like this where lots of references to photos are made, it’s nice to see a preview of a photo (on flickr or zooomr) without having to disrupt the reading of a posting. The problem is the pain of using them in this way (having to go in and edit the raw html for a posting to get the preview for specific links).

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