This is Signal vs. Noise, a weblog by 37signals about design, business, experience, simplicity, the web, culture, and more. Established 1999 in Chicago. Visit the Product Blog for more information on our products.

it’s cool how much there is behind a simple issue such as placing “digg it” icons on blog posts. there’s a theme that I’ve been seeing several places recently. from Guy’s Kawasaki’s recent interview with Mr. Arrington to Hugh McLeod’s “how to be creative” of being confident in the strength of your idea and execution, and then resting. I think the latest fireside chat here even touched on it.

it’s a challenge to live without seeking approval from others. there’s a healthy side to getting encouragement from people you know, but we often desire more spotlight.

Of course it was stupid. Of course it was uncommercial. Of course it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Of course it was a complete and utter waste of time. But in retrospect, it was this built-in futility that gave it its edge. Because it was the exact opposite of all the “Big Plans” my peers and I were used to making. It was so liberating not to have to be thinking about all that, for a change.

It was so liberating to be doing something that didn’t have to impress anybody, for a change.

It was so liberating to have something that belonged just to me and no one else, for a change.

It was so liberating to feel complete sovereignty, for a change. To feel complete freedom, for a change.

And of course, it was then, and only then, that the outside world started paying attention.

of course, seeking as much attention as possible could be “your thing”, so maybe this doesn’t even matter.

What’s I find really bad about these icons is the fact that they mislead users of them by giving a message duplicate stories instead of just allowing a user to digg a story http://www.ishopr.com/blog/?p=36

It’s really a question of who gets blogging and who doesn’t. People who get know how to use bookmarklets, add to digg, etc. Those who don’t it’s just wasted on. And you’d be surprised the number who “don’t” get it. I talked with a friend who has a blog and didn’t know/understand what RSS was. He thought I was a technological genius – and he’s putting his tuff out using the technology, he just doesn’t know it.

It all ends up being “me, too!” or in another parlance “dittoes!”.

Agree with your gist, but I bet it’s just an ineffective choice for most site owners rather than an annoyance that really gets in the way for most visitors.

I’ve learned that if you deliver the goods (content, a service you can use), it’s amazing how much noise most people will put up with. They’ll breeze right past the junk and get at the good part. Still, as a rule of thumb it’s better to err on less and keep your page focused.

Some traditional premium print magazines got it right a long time ago – you use quality ads to uplift the user experience of the whole. The end result can be a simple combination of sponsor and editor created content that blends beautifully.

Interestingly, are those blogger icons little bits of branding on everyone else’s pages, an efficient tool to enhance buzz effectiveness or an eyesore? Maybe a combination of all of the above.

Similarly, I’d be interested to see a new SvN Screenshots blogs on really well done ads in the web arena (no block banner ads allowed).

Interesting point about how many people know what del.icio.us even is. Anybody know the adoption rate of social bookmarking? is it still just an inside baseball kind of thing or are “joe and jane public” starting to use it too?

Sam – I run 2 online businesses and have been online since the early days.

But I can’t make head or tail of del.icio.us

It has 2 chances of hitting mainstream adoption.

(Or I’m just too damn old).

I’ve been using Facebook for some time and only upon reading this post did I find out there were ads; they’re automatically blocked on my machine. Maybe if I start blocking Digg and Delicious icons I can reduce the visual noise ratio on sites I visit even further…

Before reading this article, I had no opinion on the subject but now that I think about it, I have to say that I hate those icons. To me, a “Post to del.icio.us” button placed right after an article is completely useless (and noisy). There already exists a wonderful del.icio.us plugin for firefox that works wonder. No need to integrate del.icio.us buttons directly into websites content. It isn’t their place anyway.

It’s like some website authors just wanted to remind you that del.icio.us (or digg for that matter) did exists. Or, like others said, some just use them to promote (or brag about) their articles / quotes / comments / whatever.

Also, now that I think about it (i know i can be slow sometimes), those buttons are just disguised ads… hmmm…

Check out the way Seed Magazine (www.seedmagazine.com) gives people the option to add their stories to social media sites. No icons, and quite minimalist. It’s the most tasteful Digg/Delicious “whoring” I’ve come across, on what has to be one of the best designed magazine sites around.

And no, I don’t work for them.

James, blocking ads is the lowest of the low. How do you expect facebook to pay the bills??

I’ve been pondering this very ‘balance’ on my blog. On the one hand there are things I want from my site, and I could quite happily design things round that point of view. But then I always tend to lean more heavily on what the people who actually use my site, after all, how often do you REALLY use your own site?

Draft a post, post it, check it’s appeared and yer done?

I have toyed with some of those icons, and do like the LifeHacker approach. Less is most definitely more. But you knew that.

I’m surprised a clever programmer hasn’t built a form yet that submits the site to all relevant places with one click.

I’m sure it’s coming.

On my blog I decided to not put these links anywhere on the public facing website, but instead offer a select few of them at the bottom of each entry in the RSS feeds (articles/comments) only (thanks to Feedburner this is relatively straight forward.

I think people you subscribe via RSS are more likely to know what delicious/digg are and in turn are more likely to click these buttons from within their feedreader.

I cant say I get tonnes of traffic or digg/delicious posts – Its only a personal/work blog after all.

What I want vs what my vistors want

If I would have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse – Henry Ford

Does anyone else feel like it’s been some what quite on the 37signals application/RoR front?

Any news about new features, Sunrise, RoR etc…

The only thing I know is that Digg makes merely 30% of my traffic, and I’ve been using it for not only a month.

The what I want vs what the audience wants is always an interesting question. I go on a lot about learning to really listen and seeing others’ pov, but part of that is also understanding that people don’t always know what they do or don’t want until they get it. Amusing and apt Henry Ford quote on that from Greg above. Let’s also remember the Edsel, though, for balance. :)

I do believe that tasteful vs in your face addresses many conflicts. The small ad upper right here doesn’t bother me at all, whereas there are endless blogs and websites that literally make me cringe at the advertising in my face as soon as they load.

In comparison, the buttons don’t really bother me, as long as they’re a small footnote and not competing with the main event. It surprised me to read the emotional scope of the button-haters’ comments. I’d really like to see more ‘print this article’ and ‘email this’ type functions, though, for the many users (and potential users) who aren’t core geeks into social networking. This despite expecting that, yes, eventually everyone will have heard of rss.

The amount and depth of response engendered by something as small as an optional tool in button form is really amazing and has few rl corollaries.

I know that some people truly detest hyperlinks that open a new window, but all the ones on my blog do because I feel the opposite. I’ll often skip through 3 or more links knowing that I don’t want to leave the original page yet, and there are still sites that disable stepping back. I guess that might qualify as an example of doing what ‘I want’, although I’m not a full time or professional blogger focused on higher traffic.

Vera

We use Digg and Del.icio.us links on one blog I’m involved with.

My thinking is that there is a certain number of core readers, who are (1) familiar with Digg and Del.icio.us and (2) not bitter. These folks see these icons and think, “Hey, submitting this article is going to help out a blogger I like.”

Now, I’m not sure if this positive effect balances out with the negative effect of bitter readers revolting against the blog because of its whoring.

Look, you generic construct-of-speech archetypal blogger. If I like your post, I’ll digg, del.icio.us or whatever it. If you really want to make a point known to a large audience, put a digg button or similar only on that post, and no other. Do NOT put a thousand bookmark icons on all of your posts, it dilutes the “power” and really suggests to the audience that you really, really want them to do all the word-of-mouth work for you. Gah.

I added them on the site I maintain as kind of a reminder to people—hey, if you like this, share it. While I realize that certain readers are well-versed in social bookmarking and consider it pandering, I’m more interested in the casual tagger.

Granted, I personally never use the icons b/c the Firefox widgets are vastly superior, but that’s asking a lot from your readers, particularly if you have a fairly broad audience; I suspect few readers are geeky enough to bother digging through the Firefox plugins so that their tagging experience will be marginally faster.