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Comment by vittor1o | Hacker News Reader

I've launched a couple months ago https://linkz.ai

Linkz.ai is hyperlink auto-previews that keep visitors on your website. It's heavily inspired by Wikipedia & Google Docs link preview popups with special extras. For example, when you click on a YouTube hyperlink, it does not take you to Youtube website, instead it opens lightbox with Youtube video on your website. All with just one line of code.

$500+/m in a first month

Demo page: https://linkz-ai.webflow.io

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Super interesting, I added this (albeit way less pretty) to my personal site and generally got poor reviews. That being said, I'm really enthusiastic about the idea.

Example here: https://blog-545pd1vjp-sambroner.vercel.app/

Try adding Linkz.ai previews on your blog posts, and get another round of feedback :)

This has some neat use cases but I dearly hope it doesn't become the norm...

Can you elaborate a bit?

Technically rich link previews save visitors from the tab-overload.

The rich previews on hover are great. I was referring to the "Immersive Previews", and for the things demoed on your landing page like short forms and Youtube videos, they're a nice experience. I worry about a world where every "sticky" web platform gets caught in an iterated prisoner's dilemma and all decide it's in their best interest to do this. In this world, whenever I want to click a link off of Instagram or Twitter or NYT I end up in an "Immersive Preview" iframe of the site I expected to navigate to. Google AMP everywhere.

I would _love_ a world where this kind of thing is closer to a first-class feature of the web -- thinking of Xanadu-style transclusions or even Google's abandoned(?) <portal> element. I would love deep-linking from Github->Jira->Github in the same tab, and this points the way towards that. But if there are a dozen implementations of it floating around, and users have no control or warning over when a link behaves this way, it's just another way to wrest control of the browsing experience away from them.

Please be mindful about how you advertise this, is what I'm saying.

I have nothing against the previews. However when a website hijacks the link to serve a stripped down version of the content locally, it goes against the expectations of the user, and it can really f*k up accessibility tools. This is a bad use of javascript imo. A really bad use. And unfortunately it is being pushed as a way to retain users, meaning that it prioritises profits over everything else.

I don't want to be served a fullscreen auto playing video in a pop-up window when I click on a YouTube link. I want to go to YouTube and view it there, where I can like, subscribe, comment, and so on. It breaks my expectations in a bad way, and I can see why people are growing increasingly frustrated with javascript on websites due to this.

Sorry for being so negative about this. It's a cool concept, but I also really hope that this never becomes the norm. And that's coming from a web developer, someone that's usually cheering on all advancements in the web.

I do sometimes get similar first impressions, though when you look closer at the implementation - the very opposite of your comments is true.

Accessibility of the previews has been thought through & tested. The previews are clearly marked when they open in a lightbox. When you are using a screen reader, the experience improves(!) significantly; on click you get the content right away, not a website in a tab where you need to find the content, and remember that some websites were not tested for accessibility by their devs.

Separately, you can always do, CMD+Click and get the same auto-playing video on Youtube.com in a new tab to like, subscribe & comment. Or click a direct link within a preview to go to YouTube website when you feel that you need to like, subscribe & comment.

And for what it worth, Linkz.ai makes a planet a bit greener with less traffic going back & forth and less CPU & energy used to render a preview vs. a full-featured website :)

> The previews are clearly marked when they open in a lightbox.

Oh, I didn't realize that because I was on mobile.

> on click you get the content right away, not a website in a tab where you need to find the content

This is quite nifty for sites like Soundcloud and YouTube that offer an embeddable version of their content

> Separately, you can always do, CMD+Click

This isn't working for me (Firefox, MacOS)

this is really good idea, how comes not many sites/companies/people use it?

I've just started this product late last year; the response has exceeded my expectations.. give it a few more months for sites/companies/people to adopt :)

how do you get your users?

A few channels right now:

- Participating in the web dev communities

- "Powered by Linkz.ai" footer in the Link preview popups

- Campaigns on Product Hunt, Reddit & similar

- Soon: Affiliate, LTD, targeted ads for Webflow/Squarespace ecosystems

I really like the logo and web design.

What a great idea ! Why .ai though ?

Hyperlinks with artificial intelligence ;)

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