Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere
It’s been just over a month since Snap Preview Anywhere came on the scene. It allows you (with a small snippet of code or WordPress plugin) to show previews of outbound links when people mouse over them. You scroll over a link and when you do so a popup appears showing you a picture of the site that the link goes to.
I don’t get it.
I get the concept of a visual web, and that text-only search is limited. The search engine Snap.com (same people) shows text-based results and preview images at the same time, on the premise that a lot of search results are crap. With the power of SEO, spam sites, junk blogs, etc. they believe that the images help people find better results. They may, but Snap Preview Anywhere is mostly annoying.
It’s annoying for a few of reasons:
- It can be slow to load
- It sometimes hovers the preview popup image over text I’m reading
- It’s distracting
Plus, I’m not sure the little Snap preview images really show me much of anything.
Does seeing that image help me decide if the link I’m about to click on is really worth it? What’s in the image that makes me decide if the site is worthwhile? Is it the overall design, because crappy/spam sites can have nice enough designs…
The text in the preview images is typically too small to read, so I definitely can’t verify the quality of the content.
Lots of people love it. Others, including Lorelle are not fans of Snap Preview at all.
Two other notes:
- It would appear Snap Preview Anywhere is bad news for the disabled. Reference Lorelle’s thoughts on this for specific examples.
- You can get Snap Preview turned off by going to the Snap.com website and doing so. Looks like you have to sign-up, request that they be turned off and it’ll use a cookie on your computer. I won’t be turning them off (although I find them annoying) because I’m curious to see who is using them, what changes with them, and where the discussion goes from here.
While looking around for information and thoughts on Snap Preview Anywhere I read, “Snap Preview Anywhere is Popup 2.0.” That made me laugh. And sigh.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Seems Andrew and Greg are both in agreement on the “so so” value of Snap Preview Anywhere.
Anyone want to defend it?
[...] I was itching to write a post about Snap Preview Anywhere from Snap.com last night, but I was jaded tired and Pusle put on a good film so I just crashed out on the couch promising myself that I would write it this morning. Alas, or thankfully, Ben Yoskovitz wrote a post while I was snoozing which pretty much wraps up how I feel about this annoying plugin. [...]
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.
Hi Lorelle: that is a great point and a great use of this plug in.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
[...] The commenter’s are frankly who I am most interested in, because they are readers opinions, but Lorelle on Wordpress has a negative opinion as Ben the Instigator. I think this an example of the fine line you have to walk with installing “gadgets” on your site. Does the Snap Preview popup add value for the reader or for the publisher? It is the reader’s experience that it affects, yet they have no control over it. [...]
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.
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.
[...] It’s not that Snap Preview Anywhere isn’t a good idea. I may just be that it’s not ready for primetime. Ben Yoskovitz cites in his post Say No To Snap Preview Anywhere: [...]
“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.
Thanks for the tip - it’s appreciated. And I’m sure people following this post will also find it useful.
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.
Jimmy - a Google-hater! What?!?! *smile*
Thanks for stopping by and commenting…
[...] just a short trial because users hate it (problogger, johnchow, lorelle, digital inspiration, a VC, instigator, ). NOTE: Readers can disable Snap Preview Anywhere on *ALL* blogs they read by clicking this link. [...]
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
[...] just a short trial because users hate it (problogger, johnchow, lorelle, digital inspiration, a VC, instigator, ). NOTE: Readers can disable Snap Preview Anywhere on *ALL* blogs they read by clicking this link. [...]
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.
I thank the Lord for giving us the gift of brilliant preachers!