I started using Apture this week after watching this demo. So far I’m a big fan and I’d love to see more sites using it.
Normally I tend to be against these kinds of popups. When I roll over a link and get one of those Snap previews I usually find myself uncontrollably uttering expletives.
It’s not for every link. It’s great for videos, definitions and backgrounders from Wikipedia, maps — things that readers might want to experience or know more about but only in the context of the article.
Check out the latest post on Apture’s blog about how the New York Times is using it (on a few blogs) — like pointing directly to a graph on a specific research PDF page.
The little popups save from having to navigate to a whole new page — or from having a dozen browser windows open (some with several tabs) by the end of a multi-hour session online.
The Apture people talk about keeping readers on the site a little longer — i.e. more exposure to advertising — but I like the ability to compose richer stories and arguments in one place rather than sending readers all over the place (which doesn’t happen anyways according to my stats).
I’ve found that reading some of my posts in print (like the ones generously picked for the “best of the blogosphere” section in the London Free Press‘s Saturday Comment section) aren’t the same.
Reading my words in print I often ask, “Why would I have written that? That sentence is pointless and that last word doesn’t even fit right.” Then I remember I was linking to something and the point of the sentence actually a video or a picture or an article somewhere.
It’s fun going another step beyond the old conventions of authorship. Online writing isn’t just writing online…
