Snap Shots
What used to be called Snap Preview Anywhere is now known as Snap Shots. You can see it in action here on any single article view page. Any links that are offsite have a little “bubble” graphic; just hover over that graphic to get a preview of what the destination site looks like.
I first wrote about Snap Preview back in November. They’ve come a long ways since then. (I should add, if you hate ‘em, you can just click on the “Disable” link, top right corner of any preview)
With the product renaming comes new features. Interesting features. Different content may have different shots, or styles. For instance, if the links is to a YouTube video, the preview shows just the video (playable!). It also gives special treatment to Flickr photos, Amazon item listings, Wikipedia articles and more. Very slick. More information at the Shots Central page.
If you run a WordPress blog, there’s a Snap Shot plugin that’ll help you easily add the functionality and customize it for your blog. I’ve not tried it, but have heard good things about it.
Personally, I think this thing is pretty cool. I really like the new features with the specialized shots. Now that I’ve figured out how to control what links get a preview it doesn’t seem nearly as obnoxious as I initially found it. And finally, I like that folks can very easily “opt out” and not deal with the previews if they don’t want. Kind of the best of both worlds.
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