Widgets are Raping the Blogosphere
I hate all these widgets that litter the blogosphere. Some have a purpose, like the ones from MyBlogLog, BlogRush, and Amazon’s widget ad. Others just baffle me – why would you want to have a Feedjit widget in the first place?
Do you have a bunch of widgets littering your sidebar? You need to ask yourself what you get from them. Are they driving traffic? Making your users happy? Provide features necessary for your site? And if they do add something to your visitors blog experience, is it worth slowing down loading times, maybe even braking things when the widget host is down?
Please, dear blogger, and dear blogosphere, take a moment to think about this. There’s enough litter in the blogosphere as it is.
In my opinion, all these nasty little boxes are raping the blogosphere.
They’re ruining design, have poor readability, lags my web browser, slows down loading times, and are almost always ugly. Almost none fit with the blog’s design, and most of them feels completely unnecessary.
Less is more, people.
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[...] slammed widgets on Wisdump. I hate [...]
By VMware Fusion and Raping Widgets « TDH @ WordPress.com on November 21, 2007 12:05 am
I couldn’t agree with you more. As I pondered the need for more content on my sidebar at Speedvine I questioned just what I would get from it and also, what my readers would get. After realizing there was no need for more clutter on my blog I passed all widgets for a cleaner, less intrusive look.
cp @ Speedvine.com
By Speedvine on November 21, 2007 2:30 am
You’re absolutely right. And having a MyBlogLog widget in your sidebar is rather unnecessary, too. Great post :)
By Alex Kay on November 21, 2007 6:24 am
Just chiming in here. To be honest, I hardly even look at blogrolls anymore. Unless they work as a real resource compendium, I’d rather read a good review. A couple links to other places where people can find/track me (on a separate page) is all that I’m prepared to offer these days.
At least, though, widgets are still better than these snap link previews…
By Nils on November 21, 2007 11:16 am
I agree 100%, high-five and all that, but for the love of Yoda, please stop saying blogosphere.
By Michael McCorry on November 23, 2007 1:43 am
What’s wrong with the blogosphere? It’s where we are, in the blogosphere, where blogs link in blogrolls to other sites in the blogosphere. ;)
Sorry.
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 23, 2007 9:29 pm
You could, you know, set an example by removing your unnecessary ‘metrics’ widget. I do agree with you – but if you can justify a stat counter that doesn’t make sense on your own website, you’re defeating the point.
“Do as I say, not as I do.”
By Ben on November 26, 2007 12:14 pm
Ben, I’m sure the Wisdump owners (Splashpress) have a reason for the metric. There’s a lot of things in the current design that I won’t agree to, luckily I’ve been given the go-ahead for a makeover, which I’ll blog of course, but for now I’m too swamped to get started, so that’ll have to wait a little longer.
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 26, 2007 11:47 pm
I actually like the current design – but I don’t understand what that widget is supposed to be telling me!
By Ben on November 29, 2007 1:36 am
[...] ruinieren nutzlose Widgets das Design zigtausender Blogs. Entsprechend stirbt die Sidebar einen langsamen aber sicheren Tod. [...]
By Die Sidebar ist tot - Blogrolle on November 29, 2007 11:51 am
I’d say it’s there for two reasons.
1. An ad in disguise for EatonWeb and the blog metric system.
2. To strengthen this blog with numbers.
That last one is dangerous though. We’ve got a negative momentum at the moment, but I think that’s something that’s going our way.
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 29, 2007 11:17 pm
[...] seems inevitable to employ widgets in this day and age, whether you’re a desktop app or a web app. And Flash is really taking [...]
By Adobe CS4: try it, widgetize it, abuse it! | Wisdump on May 29, 2008 7:20 pm