DiggBar is a useful toolbar that Digg puts on top of sites linked to from its index, to make it easy to Digg them. Unfortunately, it also manipulates the web to Digg’s advantage, because it’s also a frame that wraps the real site, hiding the URL and encouraging visitors to stay at Digg.
People have figured out how to block it, and John Gruber’s keeping track of anti-DiggBar plug-ins for each major blogging and content management system. This is excellent work, but wouldn’t it be cool to use this as an opportunity for site owners to turn these framing games to their own advantage?
OpenBar is just an idea, but I think it would be easy to implement. This is what it does:
• Detects incoming referrers from major social bookmarking sites like Digg, especially attempts to frame your site.
• Blocks the bar or frame, just like current anti-DiggBar scripts.
• Replaces it with its own inline toolbar, which replicates the functionality of the DiggBar in a friendlier form.
For example, it would be inserted into the real web-page as a HTML < div > instead of wrapping it in a frame; allow the site owner choose what social networking buttons to use; and provide automatically-generated links to encourage visitors to visit more stuff at your site.
A good idea, or should the world just block the damn thing and have done with it?
Are Digg users actually liking that thing? I hate having the target URL obscured. I disabled it immediately.
If content producers are excited about receiving traffic from digg and want to promote the relationship, they should have a toolbar as you describe appear when they detect a link from Digg,
Something to the effect of “Oh, it looks like you came here through Digg. Don’t forget to digg/bury this site and click here to see other articles from this site that other diggers have found interesting.”
Frankly, if you want to support Digg and their viewers with your site, just put the buttons Digg gives you to put in your pages. The Digg bar is a nice way to help people interact with Digg and makes it easier for them to help your site get more traffic.
Sure, it’s a bit annoying if it interrupts the site’s flow, or creates problems with their code, but then wouldn’t you rather have no bar at all? And then, if you replace the Digg bar, why not just have it be a permanent part of the page?
Seems like too much work for too little benefit to me.
You shouldn’t frame your site in any kind of bar.
If you can’t integrate that kind of functionality into the design of your website, and need to resort to strapping a toolbar onto it, hire a better damn webdesigner.
seconding what michiel says. Just because you’re removing the digg bar why is your own bar going to be the best design choice?
these are just simple links, right? nothing complicated on the bar that can’t easily go other places
are you suggesting that digg users (coming from digg) would understand the bar? whereas other users might not, and so you can provide the social-net savvy users something extra?
with good design, it shouldn’t be that confusing
this would be most effective if you could replicate the style and position of the diggbar but customize it for you. it’s still annoying but at least it’s up to the site owner to decide this way.
i’ve inserted the js code to block the diggbar on my site because it’s troubling on multiple levels.
As MICHIEL says: if this is the first time you’ve thought of putting buttons at the top of the page, you’re not keeping up!
The only, more devious, reason to do this when linked by Digg would be to replace their bar with an almost-identical looking bar, but with links of your choosing, not theirs. Digg visitors will look there automatically, rather than figuring out your site’s design, and you could turn this to your advantage.
“Frankly, if you want to support Digg and their viewers with your site, just put the buttons Digg gives you to put in your pages”
…Actually, I’d love to figure out how to *BLOCK* those buttons. I’ve noticed that in the past year, I’ve seen page load times increase on some sites almost tenfold while the page chokes trying to load those buttons. If anyone’s got any ideas on how to do this, I’d be very interested, and I’m sure others would be too.
@OM I use the Adblock Plus plugin for Firefox and remove them by hand from my frequently visited pages.
Took me an hour to go through all the websites I care about enough to clean them up. Manually removed everything that bothered me: digg buttons, rss buttons, twitter buttons, menu’s that have a picture as title, every single picture that made my eyes itch.
Personally I think Digg should have done this all with a Firefox plugin, but because I tend to open a zillion links from Digg, and then read them, this does make it MUCH easier to Digg/Bury stuff. The obscuring of the URL is a little annoying, but all things considered it’s a net plus.
I’m not interested in a new OpenBar.
I’m one of the Digg freeriders that never clicks digg or bury. I just read the stuff. The bar doesn’t bother me but I also see no value.
The real problem I see with the DiggBar are people who use Digg’s shortened links in Twitter. For some reason I find it kind of unsavory the way those kind of links drive traffic to Digg instead of the other way around. I know it’s a symbiotic relationship but people should go to Digg for the service they provide, not because of the content they saw in a link with the DiggBar header.
Maybe I’m just a boring person, but I really don’t see what the utility of the “openbar” would be. If I want those controls, I can make bookmarklets for them, or whatever my browser supports.
Nope. I have an openbar already, built right into my browser, it’s called the “Navigation Toolbar” on to this i can add any number of tools built for the browser to be used on any site.
I hate it.
The point, which you have all missed, is to offer people coming from Digg what they expect to see, but in a form that suits us rather than Digg.