• Newsletter popups (sign up for my free newsletter) as soon as I arrive at a site
• Newsletter popups when I try to leave the same site (will I ever escape?). Do I click ‘OK’ to get rid of it or will this take me to yet another page?
• Add this, share this, tweet this – popups appearing in headers, in footers, all over the place
• Fixed position highlights that stay on the page even if you try to scroll away (‘have you checked out the latest news?’)
• Finally, the worst offender, when I try to click out to another site I’m informed that my exit click has been tracked, would I like to use the service on my site and by the way, would I like to visit the site I was trying to get to in the first place?

Some of these appear when you click your mouse. For others, all you have to do is float your mouse over a dangerous area of the web page.

I think this all contributes to a new syndrome and I’m going to call it click stress. The things you click on don’t do what you expect. You can’t get to the information and the pages that you do want. You can’t escape from annoying pages without clicking close 3 times (this might even open up some new popups for you if you’re really unlucky). It makes web surfing difficult and stressful.

If you use some (or all) of these techniques, it doesn’t make you a bad person. It’s tempting to add a few of these widgets because they are easy to install, free and carry the promise of more visitors (or more tweets, or more friends, etc). It’s important to make sure your website does the right thing and actually helps your readers. Is it gently educating them and then maybe, just maybe offering them some related information? This is the way to build trust, teach your readers and encourage them to come back for more another day.

Popups are like interruption marketing at it’s worst – unwelcome, unrelated, usually irrelevant and badly timed.

There’s been a flurry of news and activity on the net about Facebook and URLs, but in case you’ve missed it or think you’ve missed the boat, read on.

Facebook announced recently the option of registering a unique URL for your account. This gives you a unique and readable URL for your Facebook profile page, like this:

http://www.facebook.com/drrichard

…which is much nicer than the old version.

If you are already a Facebook user, you can register yours now. You’ll need to be quick though, since millions of usernames have been claimed already.

If you’re not already a Facebook user (or a group with less than 1000 fans), you’ll have to wait until June 28th. Facebook is using this window to try to reduce spammy-type grabbing of usernames – called username squatting.

OK. Back to business – how does this help you with your website? Is it worth doing?

Well, the current URLs for profiles aren’t very friendly, easy to remember, simple to pass on or very ‘brandable’. If you’re concerned about any of these, it’s worth seeing if you’re name is still available.

If you plan to try on the 28th, make sure you start early!