“Snapping” the reigns from Google
January 3, 2007 9:34 am
written by
Blake Killian

When you’re on top, the only place you can go is down, and for some time now, people have been speculating on the inevitable demise of Google. I am not one of those people. I see Google as the powerhouse it is. I am also something of a conspiracy theorist, so I’m always suspicious that Google is creating some dread Matrix behind the scenes where one day we will all be forced to plug into Google, or go cold and hungry. Although I am certain that Google isn’t going anywhere for a while (for a lifetime), I do think there’s room in my daily search routine for another player.

Notice I said player and not competitor. After all, we played in search a little bit with Huckabuck, and we learned a lot. In the end, it will take something incredibly cool, innovative, competent and scalable to compete with Google, and this morning I found an engine that may do just that.

Let me start by saying that Snap is cool. The interface is nice, but a little cluttered, and the results, for now, are ok. I am willing to invest a little time into these results even though they’re not perfect because of the way they are displayed. You get to preview most sites from the results page without having to click through to the site. So, I can use my down arrow key and jump from result to result in a snap (geez).

I also like that I feel like I have some control over my search. I don’t have to take Google’s word for it. For example, I searched for my name and quickly told Snap which results I thought were perfect and which I thought were junk. Now the only question remains was I answering that question for myself, or for the Snap community as a whole?

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7 Comments add new »

Anita wrote:

I always thought the Snap technology was cool, but get REALLY annoyed by the little snap popup over every link, particularly if I’m just browsing.

( Comment written on January 3, 2007 @ 7:57 pm )
Blake Killian wrote:

I wonder if Snap offers an option to turn off the popups on every link? bk

( Comment written on January 4, 2007 @ 9:40 am )
Patrick wrote:

I just did a quick search on Snap for Cookiemag.com, and the image that displayed was an older version of the site. The site relaunched in Sept 2006, which leads me to wonder how often they update these images.

I also clicked on another link and got no image with a message saying: Preview Coming Shortly. This site has been added to the list of URL’s to index. Our server will attempt fetching it within 24 hours.

( Comment written on January 5, 2007 @ 8:42 am )
Blake Killian wrote:

I would assume that Snap autogenerates those images from spidering, so I’m not sure how to explain an old image in the results other than Snap not visiting the Cookie site for an update. You should send them some feedback and ask about it: http://www.snap.com/about/feedbk.php

If you get an answer, let us know and we’ll post it here since I’m sure if you’re finding this problem, others are as well. It would also be cool if Snap was ego-surfing and found this conversation and decided to weigh in. Let’s wait and see. bk

( Comment written on January 5, 2007 @ 9:48 am )
Voodoo Ventures - Idea Fuel Blog : Blog Archive : Are Snap Previews just Popups 2.0? wrote:

[...] We received a comment after Blake’s post about Snap from Anita who said: I always thought the Snap technology was cool, but get REALLY annoyed by the little snap popup over every link, particularly if I’m just browsing. [...]

( Pingback written on January 5, 2007 @ 10:22 am )
imparare wrote:

Interesting comments.. :D

( Comment written on April 15, 2007 @ 12:06 am )
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( Comment written on June 18, 2007 @ 8:08 pm )

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