Snap.com is used on blogs such as TechCrunch and ReveNews among a host of others. The search/preview service has even garnered lush praise from the influentials…
“SPA is an efficiency tool – it saves time for the reader, and that’s a good thing for the publisher. I like it so much I put it on TechCrunch”
— Michael Arrington, Editor, TechCrunch.com
Snap.com adds previews of sites linked to from a specific blog or site. I’ve even begun to see affiliates and publishers making use of Snap.com on their affiliate marketing sites.
I’ve resisted using Snap.com here because I’m not sure that the trade off of an inserted bubble over the content is worth it, and I’m not sure if the user actually gains that much from “previewing the site.” Of course, I’m no fan of links either, so I see this as perpetuating the problem rather than relying on users to have their own experience searching for content in a meta-data type of fashion.
Are blog readers, or perhaps consumers using affiliate sites with the Snap.com code inserted, appreciative of the service? Does it provide a useful tool or is this another intelli-text?
frankly, I find them more annoying than useful. I wish there was an option to turn them off. or maybe there is?
I like my snap. I consider a click an investment, and nothing is worse then clickign over to something that sucks and wasting my time. If I can eliminate that happening that’s a bonus to me.
Can you really tell if something sucks or not from a thumbnail?
Sam,
I have used Snap preview on affiliate sites, but I have recently reconsidered using it. If you have evere “masked” CJ affiliate links, Snap will show it anyway in their box. Also most users are not prepared for a preview box to popup, this is not what they are used to when hovering over the links. I think tool like that can be very beneficial for a review sites but as affiliate I would like my links to be hidden/masked from an avarage user.
“Can you really tell if something sucks or not from a thumbnail? ”
Yeah, I’m a design snob, and nothing sucks worse to me than investing in a click to some horrible/ugly site. I just think it’s a nice time saver for me.
On another note, why is my headshot on the comments showing up with Heather’s photo? lol
Boy, how shallow of you Jim.
Maybe I should judge you based on the headshot on this page in your first comment. 😉
(MyBlogLogs is confused, I think. looks like it uses your URL, which Heather has claimed on MBL.)
oh, and you can turn it off…
http://www.snap.com/about/spa_faq.php?disable_spa=1#2
Wow… thanks, Scott. I’ve been looking for a way to turn it off. Sorry, Jim… I’m a design snob too, but who’s to say what looks good?
See…
http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/071406.html
Got the gravatar image fixed, Jim. Looks like Heather claimed “www.revenews.com” on MyBlogLog before you did, so if you put that in as your url, you get Heather’s image since the MyBlogLog service is anchored to url’s. Funny.
Honestly, I think they are annoying and probably don’t do much for anyone except snap.com.
I’d love to be convinced otherwise.
Hell, I’m using Firefox again because of Asa.
So, convert me!