Posts Tagged "ClickableNow"

Not Jumping on the ClickableNow Bandwagon

Posted by on Jul 29, 2009 in Social Media, Twitter | 18 comments

Just found out about ClickableNow via my graphic designer Lukas.  Thought I would give you my opinion on this website in case you see it and get super-duper excited.

I’m taking the stance that I won’t be getting excited anytime soon.

While I think the concept is commendable, here are some flaws.

  1. People aren’t looking at backgrounds enough to warrant the fee.
    Most people are using TweetDeck or, visiting your profile once and following you and then just looking at your updates from their profile.  Most people aren’t returning to your Twitter page enough to warrant the cost.
  2. The backgrounds ARE NOT actually clickable for most people.
    Here’s where the service had me asking questions of the people featured on the ClickableNow website.  I visited the featured profiles to see this technology in action and … well … the profiles weren’t clickable.  Turns out, you have to download a script before they’ll be clickable.  So, you pay them $20 BUT the only people to see it are those who have the script downloaded.  Keep in mind, they don’t really say this anywhere on their website.
  3. The profiles of the people who are using it load really, really slow.
    In a time where people are moving ridiculously fast and don’t have time to wait, I certainly won’t be waiting around for these profiles to load.  Not only that, I don’t want my profile to load slowly.  People won’t wait around.

The website needs to do a better job of educating people on how it works before they purchase as I think it’s a bit misleading right now. I’m not trying to be mean but I really think people need to know that this is not just a cool little tool that will change their Twitter experience.  It won’t.  Unless you force people into downloading a script to then click on your link.  In my opinion it’s much easier to just use the link function built into the sidebar of your Twitter profile.

What do you think?

** Update – July 29, 2009 @ 4:55pm **

From ClickableNow’s Twitter:

We’ve been listening & we agree. The entire service is now free. Create clickable background links on your profile – http://clickablenow.com — about 3 hours ago from web

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