Hi Ben,
Thanks for the quick response. As you
know I’m a huge Xanga advocate, but this issue is really bothering me.
Let me try to articulate why. I understand that the “subscribe”
pop-up is based on cookies on the user’s computer. I understand how
this works and why you did it that way. I must heartily disagree with
its methodology though.
First of all it’s deceptive. I would almost be OK with it
if it simply allowed you to put in your email address to get email
updates whenever I updated my blog, but even then I would want the
option to turn it off. As it stands now, once you put in your email
address, you are then taken to a Xanga sign up page. This is a
very tricky way of enticing people who simply wanted to get an email
update about their favorite blog to sign up for a blogging service that
they don’t want. How do I know they don’t want it? Because they have
not signed up in the past! Blog readers are not all blog writers. I
frequented many Xanga blogs for years before I decided to make the leap
and create my own blog. Before that, I signed up for Xanga simply in
order to leave comments on other blogs (this was before you added the
ability to let outsiders comment). I think you need to ask yourself
what the true intent of this feature is? Natalia, after admitting it
was deceptive, told me that it was indeed working to get new people to
sign up. I would be curious to know how many people that signed up as
a result of that pop-up, actually started blogs. And of those who did,
how many became paying customers?
As a loyal, paying customer, I find it extremely annoying
that your are paralyzing (the screen is literally locked by this
pop-up) my readers until this decision is made. Yes, most people only
see this once (until they clear their cookies). But once is too much
in my opinion. I pay you to REMOVE pop-ups and advertising from my
blog not create them. I do not need Xanga deceptively recruiting my
readers. Why not let them poke around as I did, and decide for
themselves? As far as the cookies go, many advanced computer users
choose to not allow cookies on many websites. They are intrusive and
sneaky. I understand that under “normal” circumstances most people see
the pop-up once. What’s normal though? I clear my cookies regularly
as most people should. Corporate users may have no control over
whether or not cookies are allowed on certain sites (that’s the case at
my company). Yes, you can view Xanga from within the company’s
network, but the cookies are blocked. In addition, on a slow computer,
the pop-up really impacts performance. I had one person tell me that
it took so long to clear that they closed their browser and gave up.
That should NOT be happening. I looked at her computer today, and sure
enough, because she doesn’t have enough RAM, my page loads and then it
goes gray (see attached screen shot, grey.jpg), and then it takes about
90 seconds to be able to say “no thanks” to the pop-up and then,
because she’s not able to accept the Xanga cookie due to company
restrictions, the whole thing happens the next time she tries to go to
my site. Long story short, she can’t read my site, and since she
doesn’t have a computer at home, her lunch hour is the only time she
can do it. She likes my site, but she just can’t read it!
You guys have been very good about adding new features and
functionality this year. In nearly every case though, you asked your
user base about it before implementation and welcomed comments and
feedback. This feature seems to have been introduced with no input
from the user base and no controls whatsoever. While I appreciate your
corporation endeavoring to build its clientèle, I can assure you that
my elderly relatives and some computer illiterate friends will NEVER
start a blog. I can also assure you that I will not be allowing
cookies I don’t need on my work laptop, because well, I don’t need
them!
I’ll end where I began. The bottom line is that this feature is
intrusive and deceptive. It’s only goal is to get people to sign up
for a service that they might not otherwise sign up for. It does not
work well for advanced users who choose to control the cookies their
computer receives and for those who practice good computer maintenance
by clearing their cookies. It is confusing to less computer literate
people and causes performance problems on older systems. Why would a
company with such a good reputation persist in this kind of trickery?
I humbly request that you reconsider this policy or at least provide an
opt-out.
Thanks for reading my rant. Hopefully you understand what I’m
trying to say here. I enjoy working with you guys and only want the
site to be better for everyone. Customers and non customers alike.
Thanks for your time.
Carey
http://xanga.com/careygly
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