Comments on: Are Web Page Link Previews Here to Stay?

By: Iain

Iain — Sun, 29 May 2011 03:41:11 +0000

Well Google search results have gone this way with a preview popping up if you click on the “magnifying glass”, so I guess that says something and that it is likely to stay.

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:28:45 +0000

I don’t understand your question, which sounds very spammy. Why would I email you because you leave a comment on a blog? I do have a main site. However, this is the site that may be pertinent to your readers, so link to here.

Am I missing something? Thanks.

By: Mike Burgess

Mike Burgess — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 05:39:40 +0000

Not all the money is in advertising on websites. Don’t forget the value that is placed on a Domain Name by bigger companies. Once upon a time there was an auction sute that was completelt free. Now they make billions! Imagine what that domain name is worth.

As for user experience I have no idea how you actually rate that? What are the requirments to be a novie or an expert when the design of sites, blogs and other technology and life moves so fast. Someone once told me that an ex(spurt) was a drip under pressure (oops sorry about that one).

I hope I am an experienced user of something!

By: that girl again

that girl again — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 03:17:47 +0000

Erik, I hate to tell you this, but once I’ve waited the two minutes for the ‘options’ to load on the popup window I still have to go to your site to set the cookie and kill the pointless thumbnails so I can get on with reading the page. This is because the text inside the window inviting me to reload the page isn’t even a link. And if I reload it in my browser, guess what? The pointless little thumbnails are still there!

I should probably mention I’m on dial-up right now. Oh, whoops, there went your interest in my user experience. Never mind.

Anyway, I should probably thank you for helping make wordpress.com a tackier place. I don’t suppose you’re willing to disclose what Automattic got from you for making this an opt-out feature rather than an opt-in one?

By: Paul J.

Paul J. — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 05:03:52 +0000

I agree with many, who have expressed their view towards a blogosphere filled with page previews and other such annoyances.If annoyed to an extent, a potential reader might never return to your blog fearing such disturbances.

By: Mary Sheridan

Mary Sheridan — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:01:38 +0000

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I had not realized that companies are out to make money! How did I miss that? You know, I am now suspecting that those guys running television actually might be giving that away because there are those advertisements during the program.

Also, thanks for pointing out all the nonsense about pictures. I have been really irritated by those things all over the place. I even wish the manufacturers of products would not put those gimmicks on the boxes. I mean, if Whole Foods thought the cereal was good enough to stock (I totally trust Whole Foods) why should I need a dumb picture? Now that I am an experienced eater, you see I have been doing that for years, I really don’t need the distraction and I can just read the contents and obviously determine the toasted oats from the bran flakes. Only the most initiated would need such fluff between me and the content.

Remarkable, insightful, hard hitting!

By: michaelper22

michaelper22 — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 03:02:44 +0000

Sorry for that previous empty comment – my keyboard does weird things.

Remember, these companies are out to make money on their products. We may install them for free because they are neat gimmicks, but they want the loot. The cost to losing or frustrating our audience with these gimmicks might be too high. If you use them “right” on your site, then they have value, but these are not for everyone.

How do the companies that provide the so-called ‘gimmicks’ make money? I don’t see ads anywhere. Sometimes I wonder what the point of making something that is free without any ads. I’m not so sure the cute little Paypal Donate buttons go so far (forget open-source projects and blogs here – I mean real useful sites),

By: ewingren

ewingren — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:58:35 +0000

Lorelle,

My name is Erik Wingren and I head up User Experience Research for Snap.com — the company behind the Snap Preview Anywhere service.

I need to clarify one thing: There is no need what so ever to visit Snap.com and register in order to disable the previews from appearing.

The opt-out control used to live on the FAQ-page on the Snap.com web site but registration has never been required. As of last week, prior to the full WordPress.com roll-out and in response to feedback from bloggers all over the web, the opt-out control was moved inside the preview bubble.

End-users that want it gone can simply click “Options” in the upper-right corner of the preview bubble and opt-out to prevent the previews from appearing. Going forward, I would be happy to assist you with fact-checking for anything relating to Snap.com or Snap Preview Anywhere.

Let me assure you that we have no interest in forcing functionality on users or somehow preventing them from opting-out. On the contrary the product design process at Snap.com is very much centered around an active dialogue with user regarding their experience.

And in line with that, for what it is worth — Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Your viewpoints are informing the continued development of this product.

Cheers.
–
Erik WIngren
Snap UX Research
erik[@]snap[.]com

By: Cooliris Team

Cooliris Team — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 00:15:11 +0000

Thanks for blogging on previews and mentioning Cooliris.

Cooliris previews does not occupy the entire page. Instead, Cooliris opens a preview window that is large enough so that you can see the actual content, but small enough so that it does not cover up the hyperlinks on your original page, i.e. Google search result page.

Cooliris allows web surfers to quickly run through search engine results, Ebay, Craigslist, webmail (such as Yahoo!, sorry no gmail yet), discussion forums, etc. It’s a free add-on for the browser (client-side), rather than server-side.

Thanks, again.
Alec & Cooliris Team

By: engtech

engtech — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:54:12 +0000

What is entirely more useful is if the person who posted the link put a description of it in the field so that when you hover you get their comment on the link.

What would be a little bit useful is a preview widget that got the title of the page when you hovered. The screenshots are useless though.