6 ms·

On this blog there are 11 "share this" buttons, a huge pointless banner of mostly black space, and half a page worthwhile of text is followed by 5 pages of blac

by Drakim 14y ago

On this blog there are 11 "share this" buttons, a huge pointless banner of mostly black space, and half a page worthwhile of text is followed by 5 pages of black space to allow for all the sidebar links. Is he being ironic?

rjwebb 14y ago
Does anyone even use those buttons?
- nvr219 14y ago
  I use "tweet this" button but that's it
- janlukacs 14y ago
  no one i know uses these buttons. haven't clicked one in my life.
- danso 14y ago
  I'd say, yes. Whenever I have a somewhat read post on my blog, many of the tweets have the template content excerpt
- Andrenid 14y ago
  I manage a few decently sized blogs for authors and bloggers. From all the checking I've done for these buttons, only Email To A Friend, Facebook, Twitter, and G+ are worth doing. The others might get 1-10 clicks vs the aforementioned few getting thousands of clicks (or hundreds for G+). I've gone to just putting Facebook/Twitter/G+/Email, as minimally as possible.
- pointyhatuk 14y ago
  What buttons? (adblock)
  - obviouslygreen 14y ago
    Using Ghostery here... my initial perception of a site is always based partially on how many entries are blocked on load. I've seen pages with 20+ calls to outside sharing services; at that point, a little extra cynicism kicks in.
    - pointyhatuk 14y ago
      Agreed. The number of things Ghostery blocks seems inversely proportional to the utility value of the site!
- chewxy 14y ago
  Depends on the crowd. I wrote a blog post called Hackers and Engineers (the target audience is obviously the same people who read Hackers and Painters) [0]. From what I can see, lots of entries, lots of clicks on the links of the blog post, none on the share/tweet/facebook/g+ buttons. By contrast, I see people clicking on the tweet/share/facebook button for the blog entry where I compared memes to speaking in metaphor ala Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra [1]. They don't click on the links (except to the book Wisdom Sits in Places) Different crowds of people react differently to those share buttons, I guess. The HN crowd doesn't really click that much. [0]http://blog.chewxy.com/2013/04/11/hackers-and-engineers/ http://blog.chewxy.com/2013/04/11/hackers-and-engineers/ [1]http://blog.chewxy.com/2013/02/22/darmok-and-jalad-at-tanagra/ http://blog.chewxy.com/2013/02/22/darmok-and-jalad-at-tanagr...
- bjourne 14y ago
  Yes people use them. They can drive a decent amount of traffic too if they have some alluring and easily digestible content such as the common "list of top 10 bla bla" articles. It is also suspected that Google weighs shared links highly for ranking so just a few shares can give a substantial boost to a page's seo value. Though no one knows for sure how it works.
ashleyblackmore 14y ago
I hope he is being ironic. After all, it says THIS page is why the internet sucks. Otherwise, the sense of entitlement is ridiculous. He has a free, hosted blog because it is ad-supported. He must be taking the mickey
- harel 14y ago
  He's not taking the mickey - he's actually defending himself saying WP are hosting the ads, not him etc... There are free blog services with more tactful ad strategy I'm sure. I just find this amusing. Let me just plug the best ad block software - your brain. Unfocus your mind and zone out the ads and they are simply not there any more (or use adblock - does the job for you).
- ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
  His whole page is only 256kb total. That's nothing (and very normal) compared to many sites that are 1mb of code and various style sheets over riding each other.
noir_lord 14y ago
Open the page in firebugs net tab. Frequent post's to logger.base79.com who (once I figured out how to navigate their site) appear to be some shady rights management company. The post request also contains the following {"uuidSession":"xxxx","uuidPermanent":"xxx","ip":"83.xxx.xxx.234","partner":"dailymash","timeStamp":"Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:17:20 GMT","youtube":{"title":"Favourite One Liner","video_id":"toEqW3wGQSs","volume":0,"duration":141,"currentTime":5,"currentPercent":4}} Delightful.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  People are using rage views to drive traffic to their ad infested pages? I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!
  - jrabone 14y ago
    Don't know if that's deliberate but I love the idea of a "rage view"; describes my browsing to a tee if I can't have my AdBlock.
mkr-hn 14y ago
WordPress.com has a lot of really bad themes. With my own blog (hosted on the same network), I gave up looking and went with a simple responsive theme with decent typography.

by Drakim 14y ago

rjwebb 14y ago

Does anyone even use those buttons?

nvr219 14y ago
I use "tweet this" button but that's it
janlukacs 14y ago
no one i know uses these buttons. haven't clicked one in my life.
danso 14y ago
I'd say, yes. Whenever I have a somewhat read post on my blog, many of the tweets have the template content excerpt
Andrenid 14y ago
I manage a few decently sized blogs for authors and bloggers. From all the checking I've done for these buttons, only Email To A Friend, Facebook, Twitter, and G+ are worth doing. The others might get 1-10 clicks vs the aforementioned few getting thousands of clicks (or hundreds for G+). I've gone to just putting Facebook/Twitter/G+/Email, as minimally as possible.
pointyhatuk 14y ago
What buttons? (adblock)
- obviouslygreen 14y ago
  Using Ghostery here... my initial perception of a site is always based partially on how many entries are blocked on load. I've seen pages with 20+ calls to outside sharing services; at that point, a little extra cynicism kicks in.
  - pointyhatuk 14y ago
    Agreed. The number of things Ghostery blocks seems inversely proportional to the utility value of the site!
chewxy 14y ago
Depends on the crowd. I wrote a blog post called Hackers and Engineers (the target audience is obviously the same people who read Hackers and Painters) [0]. From what I can see, lots of entries, lots of clicks on the links of the blog post, none on the share/tweet/facebook/g+ buttons. By contrast, I see people clicking on the tweet/share/facebook button for the blog entry where I compared memes to speaking in metaphor ala Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra [1]. They don't click on the links (except to the book Wisdom Sits in Places) Different crowds of people react differently to those share buttons, I guess. The HN crowd doesn't really click that much. [0]http://blog.chewxy.com/2013/04/11/hackers-and-engineers/ http://blog.chewxy.com/2013/04/11/hackers-and-engineers/ [1]http://blog.chewxy.com/2013/02/22/darmok-and-jalad-at-tanagra/ http://blog.chewxy.com/2013/02/22/darmok-and-jalad-at-tanagr...
bjourne 14y ago
Yes people use them. They can drive a decent amount of traffic too if they have some alluring and easily digestible content such as the common "list of top 10 bla bla" articles. It is also suspected that Google weighs shared links highly for ranking so just a few shares can give a substantial boost to a page's seo value. Though no one knows for sure how it works.

ashleyblackmore 14y ago

I hope he is being ironic. After all, it says THIS page is why the internet sucks. Otherwise, the sense of entitlement is ridiculous. He has a free, hosted blog because it is ad-supported. He must be taking the mickey

harel 14y ago
He's not taking the mickey - he's actually defending himself saying WP are hosting the ads, not him etc... There are free blog services with more tactful ad strategy I'm sure. I just find this amusing. Let me just plug the best ad block software - your brain. Unfocus your mind and zone out the ads and they are simply not there any more (or use adblock - does the job for you).
ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
His whole page is only 256kb total. That's nothing (and very normal) compared to many sites that are 1mb of code and various style sheets over riding each other.

noir_lord 14y ago

Open the page in firebugs net tab. Frequent post's to logger.base79.com who (once I figured out how to navigate their site) appear to be some shady rights management company. The post request also contains the following {"uuidSession":"xxxx","uuidPermanent":"xxx","ip":"83.xxx.xxx.234","partner":"dailymash","timeStamp":"Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:17:20 GMT","youtube":{"title":"Favourite One Liner","video_id":"toEqW3wGQSs","volume":0,"duration":141,"currentTime":5,"currentPercent":4}} Delightful.

ChuckMcM 14y ago
People are using rage views to drive traffic to their ad infested pages? I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!
- jrabone 14y ago
  Don't know if that's deliberate but I love the idea of a "rage view"; describes my browsing to a tee if I can't have my AdBlock.

mkr-hn 14y ago

WordPress.com has a lot of really bad themes. With my own blog (hosted on the same network), I gave up looking and went with a simple responsive theme with decent typography.