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Jason Calacanis on Site Framing: Facebook Bad, Digg Good
by Allen Stern on April 10th, 2009
There’s been a lot of talk the past couple of weeks about URL shorteners and the new DiggBar. Even Leah Culver, former partner to Kevin Rose on Pownce, has come out against the methods of the DiggBar. One of the issues with the DiggBar is that it "frames" the content of the site which can lead to a variety of issues. Daring Fireball has laid out his concerns with the DiggBar yesterday.
So what does Jason Calacanis, founder of Q&A service Mahalo, think about the concept of framing? Appears he hates it when Facebook does it but loves it when Digg does it.
Facebook:
Digg:
didnt jason leave mahalo to now produce videos?
I heard mahalo 2.0 is a frame play!
you know Sean – I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute – I was almost thinking of saying that in the post but reserved the comment for later on – I won’t be briefed anyway cuz i don’t fluff him :)
Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds ;-)
The real irony is that Facebook actually offers a way for publishers to opt-out of their ‘action bar’, which makes it a lot less controversial than the DiggBar IMHO (as I just wrote in a blog post of my very own).
But after all the bitching, aren’t most publishers really just going to do whatever drives them the most traffic?
Normally I hate the framers, but I like the digg bar because when I click on a digg link, I can sign in and digg the article without having to leave the page. I’ve been wanting this implemented in digg forever.
It looks like Engadget is blocking the diggbar now?
Wow, flattered that my lack of opinion is so important…. :-)
… I think I’m not cool with framing of websites in general. As a publisher it’s not a good trend. However, i do see the value in sometimes doing this.
We had a sidebar like the diggbar three years ago on Netscape. The goal was to show you the next five related stories. 10% of follks HATED it, 90% of folks didn’t care. We made a one-click turn off forever option.
I like how Google images does their framing when you go to the landing page of the image in question…. so, sometimes frames are ok, but most times not.
best j
No framing in Mahalo 2.0 at this point…. we’re thinking of framing our new service HaterTweets so folks can see both of your tweets on top of the stuff you’re hating on. :-)
anytime someone doesn’t fluff you or is willing to actually say the truth, they are a hater – i love how you use that term to try to deflect behavior. it’s a good technique – like a pick and roll.
if that’s the case why are you hating on my pick-and-hater roll at this very moment! :-p
don’t worry jason – we can still share a black and white anytime you like
It’s not your lack of opinion so much as the fact that framing becomes awesome when it’s done by a buddy, or someone from the cool tech clique. I mean, it’s not like you merely made a passing comment about Facebook’s framing. You were very direct, which is something I’ve always appreciated about you. Right or wrong, the appearance is that it’s OK because it’s Kevin Rose.
I would agree that framing is not necessarily 100% always wrong / no questions asked. But there’s no difference in what Facebook is doing versus Diggbar. Well, except Digg is placing advertising in the Diggbar. :)