Post Archive
› April 2, 2006
About visual noise on blogs
In 2002-2004, almost every blog had his own "Steal These Buttons" buttons:
The good: the buttons represented otherwise boring or hard to find metadata in a stylish way.
The bad: the buttons were absolutely overused, up to the point where people stopped including them in their blog templates.
From 2004 (?) on, we've seen the rise of the "add to [insert online feed reader here]" type of buttons, which are vaguely inspired by the "Steal These Buttons" design, but usually have a plus sign on the left, corporate logo on the right, and a 1px dropshadow.
The good: can't think of anything, except maybe that they might have helped RSS/Atom to become a bit more mainstream.
The bad: they're close to useless - potential subscribers will probably use their feed reader's "subscribe to" bookmarklet, a plugin or their reader's interface and don't need all those links to third-party services.
Since last year, there's a third variant of visual noise appearing on blogs: the social bookmark service icons above or below individual entries. And yes, there's even a WP plugin for it: Sociable.
The good: suggestions, anybody?
The bad: they're absolutely useless - people using social bookmarking services such as Digg, del.icio.us or Furl usually know how to add items to their accounts and don't need your favicons. Absolutely not.
The ugly: it just hurts the eyes!
Comments
1. April 2, 2006 09:19 AM
2. April 4, 2006 03:59 AM
choan Posted…
Hey, at least someone who says it clearly! I'm with you: users who don't know what these social services are won't recognize the icons. Users who know the services, will know how to use them without unnecessary visual junk.
3. April 4, 2006 06:17 AM
jh Posted…
...represented otherwise boring or hard to find metadata in a stylish way
That's a nice thing to say. Thank you. On the subject of overusage, I was pretty stunned by just how overused these buttons became.
I like Matt Brett's idea at feedicons.com.
4. April 4, 2006 06:20 AM
5. April 4, 2006 08:41 AM
6. April 4, 2006 10:25 AM
rbanning Posted…
I think it depends on your audience. Social Bookmarking is a new concept to many folks out there and these little buttons help inform - or at least raise some curiosity.
But, these little "gems" can be overdone and from a visual standpoint, I agree that it is difficult to implement nicely.
7. April 4, 2006 05:12 PM
Don Posted…
I honestly think those buttons are a sight for sore eyes! I guess it tries to make up for what it's lacking in the content. Oh well. If someone really liked a site or blog, they will bookmark it or feed it into their RSS readers even withouth any annoying buttons staring at you in the face!
8. April 4, 2006 09:58 PM
9. April 5, 2006 01:24 PM
llook Posted…
Sorry, but I don't agree.
These icons can be useful. It's a kind of advertisement - it says "c'mon! bookmark me!" or "don't you want to remember this link?".
A lot of people have registered to (e.g.) Delicious, they were using it for some weeks and then they've unlearnt it. Now they are reading an interesting article. If there wouldn't be the "add to Del.icio.us" icon on that page, they don't strike the idea to bookmark it.
Next year they remeber, that they have read something somewhere. If they wouldn't have stored the link, then they maybe wouldn't come back to our website.
10. April 6, 2006 06:26 AM
Mathieu Tozer Posted…
I said the exact same thing here http://www.mathieutozer.com/2006/03/bad-bad-bad-bad-bad.html They're HIDEIOUS.
11. April 9, 2006 04:47 PM
Eric Gideon Posted…
I agree completely. I killed all the tiny icons except for rss in my latest revamp, even those that were purely visual (comments, links, etc).
12. April 11, 2006 11:23 PM
Sara Posted…
Nice to see someone with the balls to speak against some web 2.0 trends. The main reason I don't use social bookmarking is because I never found the reason for those sites to exist. Digg seems to be interesting, but all the others seem to be social bookmarking clones trying to get in on the next best thing, almost like the dot com fiasco of the late 90's.
That, and I really don't like that much attention. Being "digged" seems to be as bad as being slashdotted. I can't afford to be popular just yet. ;P
I think I will stick with my web 0.4 browser bookmarks and word of mouth via email and IMs. ^_~
13. April 15, 2006 10:14 AM
john gutenberg Posted…
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14. April 20, 2006 12:09 AM
Ash Haque Posted…
Definitely agree, there's really no point in adding any of those buttons to the website. The people who might actually use them, will find them useless...
15. May 12, 2006 04:04 AM
3spots Posted…
Personaly, too few buttons can have the message 'I support this and this service and I don't care about the others.' too. Finding the right limit is impossible.
Dave Cardwell Posted…
I'd have to agree with you there about the new variant, Andreas.
I've yet to see it pulled off well, so they usually look hideous and/or out of place anyway, but I've certainly never found a use for them. I find the service itself usually has a perfectly usable and quick interface, or often has a firefox extension that makes things even quicker.
To each their own, I suppose?