An awful lot of websites have started adding these silly toolbars to the bottoms of their pages. Mashable, CNET, and many small WordPress blogs now have them, and I often wonder if they actually provide users with any real function. (TechCrunch had used the same Meebo toolbar as Mashable, but they seemed to have removed it.)
I find the toolbars to be pretty much useless, and distracting as I try to read. What’s the point?
Are there any users that actually utilize the functionality offered by the JavaScript toolbars? If you have one and don’t see a quantifiable positive reaction from your users, ditch it. If your users find it useful, by all means, keep it. Soliciting feedback would probably be a good idea with something as obtrusive.
