January 21, 2010
Op Ed By the ZippyCart Ecommerce Software Content Team
Have you ever been on a website and seen a little word bubble icon next to a link? Maybe you hover over the icon and are surprised to see that, instead of showing you an annoying add like links with the double underline do, it displays the landing page that the link directs to. This “snap shot” of the landing page is brought to you by a company called Snap Shots, which is quickly changing the way users and site owners alike browse content online. Check out this example here.
Snap Shots is a company that is enhancing the usability of the web, one website at a time. As they put it, “Over 100 times per second, we reveal the content that users want, in the best form possible, and deliver it to them right where they are, without forcing them to click links or conduct searches.” This form of peek-a-boo navigation keeps users engaged without having to leave a site for further information. Ecommerce companies are starting to catch onto this new service because it helps their users view other products without clicking away from the product they are about to purchase. Ecommerce news sources, like this one for example, can also utilize Snap Shots to keep users on their site without worrying that the user will click away to the article source instead. This enhanced usability can go a long way for ecommerce companies hoping to earn and keep customer trust.
Beyond the customer retention problem that Snap Shots seeks to solve, it also provides an added benefit of shared advertising revenue for the website hosting the service. The website owner can chose to participate in the rev-share, or donate all shared revenue to a charity of his or her choice.
This service is free of charge and is already seeing great success. According to the Snap Shots website, their products are used in over 2,000,000 websites and blogs and have already reached 9% of the US market. The service is so wide-spread that it even provides end-user implementation in which a user can add the Snap Shots plug-in to their browser and turn all links, on all websites, into snap shots.
Because of this popularity, ZippyCart has decided to give this service a try and see if it also improves the usability for our readers. As such, you will see these “snap shots” appearing on posts going forward, but never fear, if you don’t want to see them then there’s a way to turn them off. Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out. Clearly, Snap Shots is living by its goal of keeping the end user in mind.
Amy is the co-founder of ZippyCart. She went to school for film in Cleveland, Ohio and ended up working in the field of viral video marketing, which eventually led her to her real profession: SEO. When she's not writing for ZippyCart, she can be found out and about Seattle, WA.
