There are a number of tools that I’ve been meaning to test on my blogs over the past few months and so this weekend I’ve decided to get a few of them up and running.
The first one that you’ll notice I’m testing at ProBlogger is Snap. I’ve added it to my blogging tools page.
Put your cursor over any external links on any of my pages (except AdSense ads as far as I can see) and Snap will give you a preview of what you’ll see on that site before you actually go there (see below for an example).
I’m in two minds about this – while I can see some readers as enjoying it I suspect it’ll annoy others. So consider this a test and your opportunity to tell me how you find the user experience of the tool.
PS: Snap comes with a ‘search’ tool which you can switch on or off. I’ve left it switched off at this point as I already have a search tool on my blog using Google’s AdSense tool.
The search uses Snap’s search engine tool which I suspect what they’ve developed this tool to promote.
Update: I think it’s fairly safe to assume that I’ll be removing these in the coming day or so. I won’t do it immediately to give other readers a chance to see them in action – but the overwhelming feedback to this point is that they are not working for a majority of readers (although as expected the reaction is divided).
I would consider leaving them active in the comments section though as I do like the idea of one of our comments below that they can be useful there (having said that I probably won’t). Feel free to keep having your say though!
Update 2: I’ve disabled this. Thanks all for the feedback.
