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I keep wondering: Does anyone actually use these social buttons? I tried a few times but the experience has always been so terrible and inconsistent that I've

by moe 14y ago

I keep wondering: Does anyone actually use these social buttons? I tried a few times but the experience has always been so terrible and inconsistent that I've long reverted to simply sharing the good old copy/paste way.

bobsy 14y ago
I have a big screen and I didn't see any of the social ad's or even the pop up at the bottom. It was only going back and actually opening my eyes that I noticed it. I think this is why such buttons are so ineffective. They have been used so badly for so long a lot of people just completely ignore them. Its a bit like ad's on the side of pages. A lot of people won't even register they are there.
- jackmoore 14y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness
Mahn 14y ago
I guess the social buttons are a little bit like ads on Google: we don't use them, we don't know anybody who uses them, but they are somehow used.
dizzystar 14y ago
The answer is... idk, really, but I do know why the social buttons are often on the left side and are in a "fixed" div: http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/amd-3600-social-sharing-increase/ http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/amd-360...
Cthulhu_ 14y ago
> I keep wondering: Does anyone actually use these social buttons? The suppliers of said social buttons do; every time you see one while you're logged into FB / G+ / Twitter, a hit of you visiting that site is registered at said parties, and they can all, thanks to the prevalence of these sharing buttons, track your internet usage.
- jakub_g 14y ago
  This should be regulated somehow (yeah, I know, I sound like an 19th century guy). But probably lobbyist won't give up on that easily. I have disabled all that crap in my adblock, but there are millions of people who are not that savvy / aware etc. My friend from Germany told me that in some (but not all) the pages, there are dummy social buttons loaded by default, you have to "enable" them. Try any article at [1]. It actually displays grayed placeholders only [2], and things are fetched from G/T/FB only when you click it - you can see in HTTP console. [1] http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de [2] http://i.imgur.com/hkQXEiX.png http://i.imgur.com/hkQXEiX.png
  - driverdan 14y ago
    Disable 3rd party cookies, tracking woes averted.
    - icebraining 14y ago
      Unless they use any other tracking system, like ETags[1]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag#Tracking_using_ETags http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag#Tracking_using_ETags
      - drdaeman 14y ago
        Disable fetching any third party resources of all sorts, problem solved. Obviously, rulesets should be tuples of (source pattern, resource type, destination pattern), not silly lists ("allow google.com", huh?) like most browser extensions do.
        mike-cardwell 14y ago
        I do this using the RequestPolicy addon for Firefox.
        pserwylo 14y ago
        I am using Ghostery, which does a pretty good job of intelligently blocking (and also notifying me) of trackers. However, there are some sites that stupidly execute JS that is vital to the running of the page after attempting to initialize Google Analytics or other services. The end result is that they get a "Cannot call method 'bleh' of undefined" error which prevents the rest of their JS executing, hence broken page. If I'm really interested in actually loading the page, then I have to resort to allowing the trackers to run. sigh. Unfortunately, I can't see how this could be averted, stopping short of an extension which catches all uncaught exceptions, then tries to forcefully remove all JS which is meant to interact with 3rd parties. It could be done either via pattern matching, because Google Analytics code looks much the same on most peoples sites, or it could be through something more fun, like https://github.com/mattdiamond/fuckitjs https://github.com/mattdiamond/fuckitjs (who would of thought there would actually be a proper use case for something like that??)
arscan 14y ago
Whether or not you actually click on them, you are "using" them. Last I checked (admittedly, a couple of years ago), if you've used that browser to log into facebook and haven't cleared your cookies (or configured / installed a privacy add-ons), facebook is able to associate that page view with your account through the like button on that page. They bypass the 3rd party cookie mechanisms that are suppose to be in place to prevent this. If anybody knows if this is has changed, please chime in. I'd love to know. edit: whoops, looks like somebody made the same comment before me, so i assume its still something they do: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5369214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5369214
jonathanjaeger 14y ago
I use the tweet buttons but often remove extraneous info or put what I would normally write in my tweet but keep the link. If I like an article enough to tweet it, why not add some social proof by boosting their tweet button count one higher? I think that's fair.
nivla 14y ago
As a visitor, no I never use them and I seem to think no one will want to use them. However, as a webmaster, I prove myself wrong, a lot of people do use them and they do seriously become part of your site's daily traffic. So in other words, if the snake oil sells, you better carry them in your store!
yourcelf 14y ago
Emphatically: yes. Those who collect stats on them find that they contribute a substantial portion of shares.[1] People rant against them often, probably because they wish they weren't effective, and they might not personally click them. But others do. [1] http://www.luigimontanez.com/2012/actually-social-media-buttons-work-really-well/ http://www.luigimontanez.com/2012/actually-social-media-butt...

by moe 14y ago

bobsy 14y ago

I have a big screen and I didn't see any of the social ad's or even the pop up at the bottom. It was only going back and actually opening my eyes that I noticed it. I think this is why such buttons are so ineffective. They have been used so badly for so long a lot of people just completely ignore them. Its a bit like ad's on the side of pages. A lot of people won't even register they are there.

jackmoore 14y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness

Mahn 14y ago

I guess the social buttons are a little bit like ads on Google: we don't use them, we don't know anybody who uses them, but they are somehow used.

dizzystar 14y ago

The answer is... idk, really, but I do know why the social buttons are often on the left side and are in a "fixed" div: http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/amd-3600-social-sharing-increase/ http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/amd-360...

Cthulhu_ 14y ago

> I keep wondering: Does anyone actually use these social buttons? The suppliers of said social buttons do; every time you see one while you're logged into FB / G+ / Twitter, a hit of you visiting that site is registered at said parties, and they can all, thanks to the prevalence of these sharing buttons, track your internet usage.

jakub_g 14y ago
This should be regulated somehow (yeah, I know, I sound like an 19th century guy). But probably lobbyist won't give up on that easily. I have disabled all that crap in my adblock, but there are millions of people who are not that savvy / aware etc. My friend from Germany told me that in some (but not all) the pages, there are dummy social buttons loaded by default, you have to "enable" them. Try any article at [1]. It actually displays grayed placeholders only [2], and things are fetched from G/T/FB only when you click it - you can see in HTTP console. [1] http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de [2] http://i.imgur.com/hkQXEiX.png http://i.imgur.com/hkQXEiX.png
- driverdan 14y ago
  Disable 3rd party cookies, tracking woes averted.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    Unless they use any other tracking system, like ETags[1]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag#Tracking_using_ETags http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag#Tracking_using_ETags
    - drdaeman 14y ago
      Disable fetching any third party resources of all sorts, problem solved. Obviously, rulesets should be tuples of (source pattern, resource type, destination pattern), not silly lists ("allow google.com", huh?) like most browser extensions do.
      - mike-cardwell 14y ago
        I do this using the RequestPolicy addon for Firefox.
      - pserwylo 14y ago
        I am using Ghostery, which does a pretty good job of intelligently blocking (and also notifying me) of trackers. However, there are some sites that stupidly execute JS that is vital to the running of the page after attempting to initialize Google Analytics or other services. The end result is that they get a "Cannot call method 'bleh' of undefined" error which prevents the rest of their JS executing, hence broken page. If I'm really interested in actually loading the page, then I have to resort to allowing the trackers to run. sigh. Unfortunately, I can't see how this could be averted, stopping short of an extension which catches all uncaught exceptions, then tries to forcefully remove all JS which is meant to interact with 3rd parties. It could be done either via pattern matching, because Google Analytics code looks much the same on most peoples sites, or it could be through something more fun, like https://github.com/mattdiamond/fuckitjs https://github.com/mattdiamond/fuckitjs (who would of thought there would actually be a proper use case for something like that??)

arscan 14y ago

Whether or not you actually click on them, you are "using" them. Last I checked (admittedly, a couple of years ago), if you've used that browser to log into facebook and haven't cleared your cookies (or configured / installed a privacy add-ons), facebook is able to associate that page view with your account through the like button on that page. They bypass the 3rd party cookie mechanisms that are suppose to be in place to prevent this. If anybody knows if this is has changed, please chime in. I'd love to know. edit: whoops, looks like somebody made the same comment before me, so i assume its still something they do: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5369214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5369214

jonathanjaeger 14y ago

I use the tweet buttons but often remove extraneous info or put what I would normally write in my tweet but keep the link. If I like an article enough to tweet it, why not add some social proof by boosting their tweet button count one higher? I think that's fair.

nivla 14y ago

As a visitor, no I never use them and I seem to think no one will want to use them. However, as a webmaster, I prove myself wrong, a lot of people do use them and they do seriously become part of your site's daily traffic. So in other words, if the snake oil sells, you better carry them in your store!

yourcelf 14y ago

Emphatically: yes. Those who collect stats on them find that they contribute a substantial portion of shares.[1] People rant against them often, probably because they wish they weren't effective, and they might not personally click them. But others do. [1] http://www.luigimontanez.com/2012/actually-social-media-buttons-work-really-well/ http://www.luigimontanez.com/2012/actually-social-media-butt...