You might have noticed that some of the links on my blog that previously displayed a PreviewShot (image of the linked web site) now display RSS information from the linked site. This new capability is called RSS Shot and it’s the latest improvement & enhancement that we added to the Snap Shots product.
This is how it works in plain words:
- An Expanded View would show if the link is to a specific article or to a blog post permalink
- An Excerpts View would show if the link is to a site that has an RSS feed accosiated with it. Typically you will see 2-4 headlines depends on the size of the bubble
A more detailed & technical description is avlaiable on the Snap blog.
The more I use it I find it more and more useful. In many cases it is faster for me to visit hover over the links on my site’s blogroll and see thier latest headlines than to launch an RSS reader (Netvibes has become really slow for me lately, not sure why). What do you think?
“Are you ready to spend a whole day, today (Tuesday), without using Google?” asks Richard MacManus of Read/Write Web. I am. I hope you are too.
So when you look for an alternative search engine to spend your day with, try Snap, the visual search engine.
We recently added a Classic mode to ease users into the “search with previews” experience. The Classic mode displays a traditional “10 blue links” SERP with Snap Shots, so you get to see what’s behind the link.
When you feel ready for the real thing switch to the Enhanced mode to enjoy large & rich previews, keyboard shortcuts (use up & down arrows to quickly surf thru the list of results) & Keyword suggestions and more.
And if you really like the experience, try Snap Image Search and install a Snap toolbar.
Happy searching:
Josh Kopelman (First Round Capital) posted a great one on the different approaches Myspace and Facebook have related to Widgets and their role in the new social economy.
Too bad both environments still disallow a great utility such as Snap Shots to be added to users pages.
There are some really innovative visualization mashups including Digg Charts, Digg City, Wheel of Upcomingand others. I actually find the ones built using Adobe Appollo (make sure you have it installed) to be less impressive than the pure Flash ones. This is kind of a surprise for me.
I already wrote about Digg Exposé, the mashup between Digg and Snap Shots. It looks like it has many fans but it needs more votes.
Last week Hart Woolery a lead developer at YourMinis created a new mashup using Snap Shots & Digg’s new API and submitted it to Digg API Visualization Contest.
Jason who works with me at Snap posted the story on the Snap blog and in a few days his story reached Digg’s home page.
This a very cool mashup and great product recognition for the Snap Shots product.
