On Tuesday, November 14, 2006, Snap launched a new web service that enabled the display of a graphic preview for literally any link anywhere. The service was called Snap Preview Anywhere, or “SPA” for short, and it took off like a rocket. Today, after six months of dialogue with end-users, publishers small and large and content owners, and after a contest where the user community submitted ideas on how to take this technology to the next level — Snap.com is today very proud to announce Snap Shots™.

Snap Shots is a new Internet platform that delivers relevant content to users at the time and place where it’s most useful, across a network of more than a million web sites. Snap Shots builds on the extraordinary success of Snap Preview Anywhere which is currently used more than 9 million times a day.

The Snap Shots platform puts a wide array of useful information at users’ immediate disposal.

For example, mousing over a Snap Shots enabled link provides the end user with additional content relevant to the subject of the link (not just a preview image). Ranging from a Wikipedia entry, financial data of a company being written about, a short bio on a celebrity, photos from a photo sharing site to mp3 file streaming music. With Snap Shots, people can find what they’re looking for faster, no matter where on the Internet they are.

To see Snap Shots in action, please take a look at the Snap Shots Showcase.

Snap Shots Oveview

Currently, there are eight nine Snap Shots, incl. the Reuters CompanyNewsShot (our first CustomShot), but many, many more are in development.

PreviewShot™, formerly known as our Snap Preview Anywhere blog widget, shows a preview image of whatever site a link points to. This shot provides the same “look before you leap” benefit that the Snap.com search engine does.

WikiShot™ generates a text summary of a Wikipedia entry on any given subject. Users can read it right there at the site they’re on, before deciding whether to delve deeper into Wikipedia.

MovieShot™ provides pictures, biographies and recent projects on entertainment-related topics, including movies and TV, cast and crew.

StockShot™ displays in-depth, updated stock market info in context right at the web site.

VideoShot™ allows sites to play video clips, without cluttering layouts with big, static images, or sending users away.

PhotoShot™ puts an entire photo album into a Shot, allowing users to view the entire album without having to leave the original site.

ProductShot™ automatically shows the Amazon.com listing for a product.

AudioShot™ plays .mp3 files within the Shot and also displays information such as the track, the artist, the album art, etc., if available.

Reuters CompanyNewsShot leverages Reuters’ global news capabilities and the Snap Shot platform to deliver story headlines for publicly-traded companies. The Company News, updated in real time, is contained within a Snap Shot and is linked to the actual Reuters articles. (This is our first CustomShot, and an example of how a third party content provider can use our Snap Shots platform.)

Snap Shots For Developers/Webmasters

Developers, WebMasters, and site Producers can easily add Snap Shots to their sites by placing one line of javascript on every page that needs enhancement. Moreover, there are a wide range of options that allow each site to fully customize and configure the implementation of Snap Shots to get the exact affect they want.

The release of Snap Shots is the first step in creating an ecosystem based on this open platform that will allow developers and webmasters the ability to create their own Shots for private or public use. The Snap Shots ecosystem includes Snap Shot Markup Language, a tagging system inspired by microformats, that allows publishers to enable Shots on any web content.

Developers/Webmaster can visit Snap Shots Central to browse the library of available shots

Snap Shots For Content Owners

Many content owners are in need of new distribution channels to better utilize their assets. Snap Shots provides content owners with instant, branded distribution across millions of web sites large and small, without the effort of building and maintaining a network and technological infrastructure.

The first CustomShot is the Reuters CompanyNewsShot which leverages Reuters’ global news capabilities and the Snap Shot platform to deliver story headlines for publicly-traded companies. The Company News, updated in real time, is contained within a Snap Shot and is linked to the actual Reuters articles.

The Snap Shots Markup Language

The Snap Shots platform can be customized by web developers, designers and content providers using a new markup language called Snap Shots Markup Language (SSML). SSML allows addition of tags in a compatible fashion to standard HTML or XHTML web pages to specify what Snap Shots are displayed and on which content. SSML allows display of any Snap Shot on any web content, not just hyperlinks. For each of the initial Shots, SSML provides support for full customization. SSML is also extensible allowing the specification of markup for new Shots that have not yet been created.

The Snap Shot Markup Language was inspired by the Internet community work on microformats and intends to work with the community on future Snap Shots.

For more information on the Snap Shot Markup Language, please download the technical specification:

Snap Shots™ Markup Language, Technical Specification, Version 1.0