Common Blog Widgets I can't stand

Sometimes it feels like a memo goes out once a week to all bloggers that says, "any sidebar space not filled with a widget will be confiscated". I say this because so many bloggers fill up their website with some of the silliest widgets and functions. That alone wouldn't annoy me. The problem is that so many of them they choose to fill their sites with are either annoying, distracting, useless, or all of the above. Here is a list of some of the most egregious offenders.

*disclaimer* The opinions below are that of DustinM alone. They are his personal opinion reached by years of reading blogs, and not the result of any type of market research or polling. So don't go pulling any of these widgets off your website just because of what's said here. Pull them because they deserve to be strapped onto a rocket and aimed directly at the sun.

Showing location of the site's readers
So let me get this straight. Of all the things you think your reader should know, you thing they need to know where each other are from? Sometimes not even all of them, just the most recent visitors. Great! I think it's awesome that people from Mongolia and Peru read your website, but I really don't care. I just want to read your article about the "10 best firefox add-ons".

Pictures of readers
Here's a weird stalker-ish inducing widget. I don't know what the logic here is. Apparently, not only do I get to know where everyone is from, but now I get a picture of what they look like. Personally, I think these last 2 widgets were the invention of the mafia trying to find guys in the witness protection program:
"Hey Vinnie, ain't dat da guy dat sold out Uncle Tony to the feds"?
"Yeah, yeah that's the scumbag. How'd ya find 'em?"
"Well, I needed to change the brakes on my '08 Taurus and found this blog about how to do dat. Apparently, our guy needed to do the same ting... 'bout 5 hours ago."
"Does the site have one of those annoying widgets that tell you where everyone's from?"
"uh... yeah, says right here. Mount Claire, California"
"Excuse me while I go make a phone call".

8,000 directory backlinks
Yeah, blog directories are great for creating incoming links. Unfortunately, some insist on a backlink to the directory. That's fine, but why would you put that in your sidebar? Nobody is going to want to see those. Put them in your footer where they belong so they can be promptly ignored by your readers.

PageRank Bragging
I am so thrilled that google thinks your website is a '4'. For the .05% of your visitors that give a rats ass what your pagerank is, now know what it is. Not because you display it like a badge of honor, but because the .05% of the people that care about it already have the google toolbar that tells them the exact same thing. And the toolbar told them much quicker because they didn't have to sift through 2 or 3 screens of directory backlink images.

Anything that flashes so fast and bright it causes epileptic seizures.
I don't care if it's a banner, widget, Advertisement, or the freakin' pope. If the damn thing makes my screen look like a vegas slot machine I'm going to click off your page faster than you can say "boss over shoulder".

Annoying popup ads on keywords
If anything destroys the internet. It's not going to be a lack of net neutrality or email spammers that do kill it. It is the unholy troll that thought to combine annoying "pop under" ads with "preview pics". If you don't know, a "pop under" ad is where the ad software goes through a site and underlines certain keywords with a dotted line. If a reader clicks that word they will be taken to the paid sponsor's site. That alone is not too annoying. However, some genius decided the dotted line wasn't enough. Now anytime I move my mouse over a link some flashy picture pops up OVER the text I'm trying to read. It turns my casual reading into a boxing match:
"shit, I can't read that text now. There's no close button. Oh I'll just move over this ad. Ah... now I can read it... Time to scroll down the page. Why can't I scroll? Oh my mouse is over the picture. I'll just move it and... crap now it's over another ad... Finally, I finished scrolling. Hey, check out that link, I think I'll just... fuck! it's covered up now!"

Latest comments box takes up an entire side
Look, you can have a widget that displays your latest comments. I think that's cool. But keep in mind that it's not something worth taking up an entire page worth of a sidebar. 90% of all blog comments are along the lines of one of the folling:

• Dude, that is so true.
• You don't know what the hell you're talking about.
• Luv your site. U should check out mine at http ://www . my-super-dupersexy-girl-friends-acting-naughty . com

Also, if you're a female blogger, you'll have this added gem.

• We should so hook up!
  

You really don't want those things clogging up more than a tiny space in your sidebar, do you?

Blogroll to unrelated topics
Links are great. Your site can't possibly contain everything a reader needs to know about a topic. That's what wikipedia is for. So, you offer links to similar websites. Or, at least, they SHOULD be similar. If your site is about home gardening, why the hell do you have links to sites about buying real estate? Just because some yahoo offers to exchange links with you doesn't mean you have to do it. Exchange links with relevant sites or at least maintain 2 different blogrolls. One labeled, "Useful links" the other labeled, "Stupid links".

Hit Counter
It is TWO-Freaking-thousand-and-EIGHT people! Come. on! 1995 called, they want their widget back! Nothing says "I can fake being popular" like a hit counter. This widget was useless even when it was new. Sure, this site has 2600 hits, but is that since last week or last year? Or is the site brand new as of yesterday, but some little shit hit refresh on his browser 2500 times. Thanks to a lack of timeframe and easy manipulation this widget tells your readers nothing about your site. Please! let this widget go to heaven where he can reunite with his grandma and grandpa, websites with frames and java applets.

By the way, sorry about all the swearing. I normally try to keep things PG, but these annoying widgets really get to me. What about you? What blogging widgets make you swear?

Meta Posts in Blog Fiction

Almost all fictional blogs need some way to convey non-story elements. Things like a short introduction, a short summary of the story so far, a note from the author are all examples of this. The problem is, where to put that information. Some people put it all in their sidebars. Others put the info in header links. Still others put the info in "Author's notes" posts, and still others maintain a separate non fiction blog. Some of course, might do a combination of all of these.

Of all the methods, the one I like least is what In My Daydreams does. It has entire meta posts here and there, and then some of the story posts have author notes embedded in them. Having all that non story text is a huge distraction. It prevents me from immersing myself in the blog. It also serves as a constant reminder that it's fiction. For me, reading is the most entertaining when I can almost forget that what I'm reading is a work of fiction. Looking at Fleet Commander, I must say that even one "author's note" can be jolting. If I'm reading to catch up, I don't need to read an author's note from 3 months ago. Especially since it probably no longer contains relevant information.

I'm not trying to pick on In My Daydreams or Fleet Commander, lots of fictional blogs do this. Transplanted Life does it, I did it, Anonymous Lawyer did it, etc... I think as a writer it just made sense to once in a while slip in a meta post the same way as a fictional post. However, now that I'm evaluating this practice as a reader, and in spite of the fact that everyone seems to do it, It's a practice I now discourage.

Instead of doing Meta posts, consider these other ways to convey meta information:

• Put an announcement at the title level
• Maintain a separate "meta" blog.
• Consider if you really need a meta post
  

If you're late in your scheduled posting or you're taking a brief hiatus, why not putting it at the top of your blog, instead of a post. That way you can still convey the announcement to your readers, but don't have to permanently embed the info into your blog. You can just take down the announcement later on.

If you're going to be posting a lot of meta information like Entia did, you should definitely consider having a separate blog for the non-fiction posts. It makes for a clean separation.

Do you really need that author's note? If your post is a little late, your readers will get it, you don't have to tell us in a post. Also, instead of responding to comments as a post, You can respond to your readers in the comments as well. There's no law against leaving a comment on your own blog.

Of all the ways to convey what I call "meta" information. That is, information that isn't part of the story, I have to say my favorite method is what was done by (the now defunct) Entia and Big Melly. They use a separate blog. That way the story posts are completely separate from the author's notes.

I like the idea of using a separate blog because it really lets the story blog sit out, uninterrupted. A reader can really immerse themselves in the reading. If I'm catching up on a story, I won't be jolted out of my reading by an "author's note" from 3 months ago that's no longer relevant.

While I don't expect everyone to start maintaining 2 blogs, I hope everyone will consider getting rid of meta posts using the strategies above. If you really really have to have one, consider eventually deleting it when it's no longer relevant. That way it won't distract readers when looking through your archives.