On a limited number of blogs, about 10% we’re testing out a plugin that allows you to have Snap Preview Anywhere (SPA for short) enabled on your blog. SPA is a little widget that shows people a preview of the page on the other end of a link when they hover over it for a few seconds.
I tried it out on my personal blog and really liked it, we’ve had a fair number of requests for it, and we think the Snap guys are fun to work with so we thought we’d give it a go here on WP.com.
If you’re a lucky member of the beta group be sure to send in your feedback about what you think about it to help shape how/if we roll this out for everyone.
Finally if for whatever reason you dislike it, you can disable it for your blog under Presentation > Extras. If you never want to see it again anywhere in the world on any site click on the question mark in the preview box and they have a link that sets a cookie so it won’t show up anymore.
Update: If Snap isn’t on your blog or you only saw it briefly, don’t worry. If you like it just leave a comment and you’ll be first in line for the next stage of testing.
WordPress.com News 
Is there a tab called Extras under Presentation — can’t seem to locate.
I just noticed the SPA plugin when I looked at my blog today. Very nice and very useful indeed. Thanks. 😉
PS: By the way, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to you guys over at WP and all the bloggers! 🙂
Sounds fun 🙂
peoplesgeography, you only see the tab if you’re part of the 10% beta test group. If not, you’ll have to wait until when/if we make the feature public for everyone. (Then you’ll see that tab.)
I noticed my blog got it and I’m very happy about it!! Especially because many people do not know the “hover” functionality on pictures in blogs, so that’ll help them learn one more trick as well!
Happy New Year to WordPress! You guys and girls do a wonderful job!
Honestly, It is quite irritating…
thanks! i have that snap preview, This is one of the best presents this year! really!
I think my readers will be very happy to use this feature. Thanks!
Oh My God.. a breathless innovation!!
It’s on my blog too, but I have no Extras tab.
Hi Matt!
Thanks for putting Urban Semiotic in the beta! This is killer! I’d read about this feature in the forums but didn’t understand how it would work. It works great and adds great research depth to an article.
Some sites take awhile to load — like links to articles on my own blog. SMILE! Are the loaded Snapshots being cached somewhere?
I don’t see any new EXTRAS tab in my PRESENTATION area.
This is definitely a “Must Do” for all blogs!
W00t! I’m actually one of the CHOSEN ones! Muhahaaha! It’s very nice…
Wow, Beta-Group-Blogger, how cool!
Although it took a bit long for loading the previews I really like it!
Wow! What a surprise! What a great Christmas present! Thanks! :-*
This is really killer, Matt!
Can it be enabled for Comments and Sidebar links as well?
I also belong to the small group of beta bloggers. It’s a cool thing and I would like to keep it.
I think it’s absolutely fantastic. In a snap you can find out where the link is going to, and can click it only if you want to. You can see the title of the page…for example if I have a Wiki link then the reader can get that info without bothering to go to Wiki to check out the authenticity of what I am saying.
It’s such a wonderful thing that I can’t get over it. Please don’t take it away!
There is no Extras at my Presentation-Menue, and i really need to switch that stuff off.
I think it’s great! Thank you.
thanks this is awesome! i added it to my site
Matt, ¡This widget is really awesome!
Don’t worry, I’ll give you feedback when I wake up. I mean, I’ve just got up and the first I’ve thought was, “Oh my God!, I have taken control of another guy’s blog who has that SPA thing” (well, I know it sounds crazy, but I should be still in bed).
¡Happy New Year to all!
Nice gift, By the way
I found Snap Preview on my blogs today, but didn’t find a link in Presentation/Extras. However, I do like it. It seems to encourage people to actually go to the links. I find that some links take forever to get a preview for and others are instantaneous. I’m assuming this has to do with the slowness of the server linked to for preview? Thanks for keeping on top of the fun stuff at WordPress!
I like it! The loading time is a bit long on the page but it was a nice surprise to see when my page finally loaded.
I can see how some readers would love it. I find it a bit gimmicky but since it’s disable-able I’ll give it a solid thumbs-up.
Yeah I’ve got it! It shows a preview of the pics on my blog BUT BIGGER than the original!
How very very cool indeed!
Matt,
Thank you for including my fiber related blogs in this group. I hope my readers enjoy it as much as I do. It is so cool!!!
Thanks for improvement.
I like it, it has a very neat feature.
Oh,i’m very happy to be one of the tester bloggers…It’s very good idea.
I’m sorry for the feedback but now is closed for holiday…i come back later and i write my good impression…
Thanks a lot
and sorry for my english 😉
Yipiii..i have it too on my blog !! Thank you, WordPress ! I love it 🙂
Oh, I noticed this when I was posting this morning. It is great! I love it!!
I found it on my blog too. No extras tab yet. It can be annoying or pretty cool, depending on the case, so it would be interesting to choose whether to use the feature or not in each post / page.
Nice tool – It will encourage newbies to test the “link” waters. I have users who just read the teaser and don’t realize they can click on a link to get “the rest-of-the-story”. This should encourage them to click onwards.
very nice feature… thanx guys!
This will be a cool addition for those of us not in the beta (hint, hint! 😉 ).
happy new year!
Thanks for letting Dre’s Ramblings be a beta tester for the Snap feature. It did take a little bit on the home computer for the images to load, though it is a much older system. I did not see the extras tab under “Presentations” but I’m not sure I’d want to turn it off. It’s great for people to see if a link is active or not. Also great for us to figure out where we need to fix things.
Great as always guys!
Happy New Year!
Yay me! I am one of the Beta People 🙂 I really like this feature. Some of the previews load faster than others, but that doesn’t bother me particularly since it’s obvious from the preview pane what it’s trying to do. And they DO load. Thanks, Matt!
Woohoo! I got it, too. I feel so special.
Hmmm…I like the idea quite a lot, but the preview takes longer to generate than actually clicking the web page would. And since I always target=”_blank” my links, I don’t care about people clicking away from my page.
I like Snap preview on other blogs. I’ve seen it more an more lately.
Shame I’m not one of the lucky 10%/ 😦
May I ask how people were selected?
Since Feedback is still closed I’ll tell you here I can now see the “Extras” tab in Presentation.
That “Extras” area looks like a veeerry innnteresting place for future filling!
The Extra-Option appeared, thanks a lot!
Nice. I’d love to see widgets for MyBlogLog and The Good Blogs, too.
Hey guys check out the update at the end of the post. The problem with the Extras tab should be fixed, and unfortunately we made a mistake where I put it on more blogs than I meant to. If you have it now, you’re officially part of the beta test group, if you don’t, you’ll have to wait until we turn on the feature for everyone.
i dont have it on my blog but i find it to be kind of annoying actually..
that’s what I thought!
I’ve just seen it but it’s gone.
let me test it, too. thanks!
Firstly, I thought that it might came from my cookies on snap.com site, ha ha ha thanks for your develop, Matt. 🙂
I dont have it. But I’d love to.
Ahhhh…mine went away. I’d be happy to wait in line, though. 🙂
I quite like it, but think it could be very annoying if a post contains lots of links.
Very useful! I want it!
Very Cool! Definitely want to keep it. Looking forward to it full time!
When/where/how/why/what do I do/sign-up/bleed to marry this entire web-site to myself? Gooooooooodness just comes like a fountain from here. Am I really alive?
(yes, this is nice, seeing how a page looks before I go there!) NICE!!! VERRRRRY!!!!
When I leave something that I hope folks will click on it adds the “chance” that they’ll be lured by whatever visual element I might have guessed would do that. That thing. That thing you keep doing.
Please, keep doing it. !!!!!
–g
Hope the beta proves out. Looking forward to having this enhancement on my blog.
OK, now I see the link. Cool!
I got it. keep it up 🙂 I love it.
So sad, I did just announce my visitors the good news, and it changed in a few minutes. doh! 😀
Anyway, I think I’ll have to wait.
Goodbye
Wow… I don’t have and I want it too 🙂
Well, I haven’t yet checked if I am one of the lucky testers, but it surely is an excellent feature for all wp bloggers. I have seen this in a number of other blog providers and to be honest, I was a bit (…just a bit) jealous 🙂 would love to see it becoming available to all wp blogs in the future.
Thank you guys for all you hard efforts and best wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New 2007 to everyone!
Hi matt, this is working great for me. Thanks for the cool additional feature 😀
Hi Matt,
Yes i had it briefly as i mentioned in my earlier comment. And i love it ‘cos i think its very useful. 🙂
I don’t have it but I want it too!
Wow, I guess I am on of the lucky bloggers in the beta group. How did this happen? Anyway I love this function it is a very welcomed addition!!!
I don’t know why people like it. It’s so annoying! And now more people will have it… 😦 It’s bad enough with Techcrunch.
Yes, I would love to have it on my blog too!
I WANT IT TOOO. 😀
Please don’t let me wait too long, ’cause I’m just and old man with no clue about how long I have to live right now.
Please. 🙂
Good morning, Matt. Thank you for tapping me into the fortuitous 10 % who have Snap! loaded onto their sites. I love it, and it seems to be working well for me. As others have mentioned, some of the links load slowly; others are almost instantaneous. Definitely a keeper in my opinion.
Again, thank you for all you do to make WordPress such a delightful place to be.
Shirley Buxton
http://www.writenow.wordpress.com
I wanna be in the first line, the next time 😀
love it!
doesn’t mean I won’t change ideas, though 😆
thanks/kiitos/obrigado.
😦 I had it for a while, but now it is gone. I would be very happy to get in the next test group
Hi Matt ,
I always interesting wp and i wani it too.
If i has been installed COOLORIS (FFox extensions),should be works separately ?
thanks and waiting for “extras SPA”
I wanna try this. Thanks.
I want try this. thanks
Glad to be a part of the test group. It really is a cool feature 🙂
I did have it but I forget if I disabled the cookie or maybe I got it by accident. For the time I did have it, Snap preview was supremely irritating. I don’t think it’s a bad feature but as long as the blog’s administrators can toggle it on/off, it’s fine.
Just to clarify, once the feature is turned off in the Extras tab, it means the blog is Snap-free right? As in visitors won’t be hassled with setting the cookie if they don’t like it?
When you decide to go tru the second stage of beta testing with this nice feature, please remember me. It would be most usseful to use in my blog [wich I use with my ESL students]
Thaks
I received it too on my blog and I think it’s great!
I noticed it on a blog I was viewing, yesterday. I thought it was great to preview a link before navigating to it. I wanted to know how to get it myself! Lo and behold, this morning, it’s on my blog.
Love it.
Keep up the good work.
Hi Matt,
I had it briefly a little while ago, but it’s not there any longer. I really liked it a lot. Maybe you’ll put it back onto my blog? I hope, I hope….Good work!
WOAH! THATS AWESOME! 😀 Thanks WordPress team!
love snap, saw it installed , was unhappy that i couldnt do the same in wordpress, coz it needed a script to be added. But thanks a ton and please please do put it in blogs. Since i see a lot of complaints, make it optional….
In my opinion the preview is so small that it is of very little use. I use Cooliris (http://www.cooliris.com) which offers a much bigger preview.
add me in, when you can. or if you can.
I checked out my site and lo and behold… I found out I was one of the lucky 10% of the bloggers included for beta testing. I love the feature! It shows visitors what to expect on a site even before actually clicking on it. I sincerely hope you guys won’t take off this feature anymore on my page because I absolutely love it.
Thanks for always improving our pages. WordPress rocks! 🙂
Sounds pretty neat. I’m going to see if I was in the 10%. If not, I’ll be back to whine! And hey.. does everyone know that if they check out the main page at fracas, they can still take part in National Drunk Blogging Day (today)?
The info and links are there and in the meanwhile, we’re all heading out to hit the liquor stores.
The SPA should be even more fun tonight. 😉
Hey Matt.
I think is great but i noticed it doesn’t work with sidebar links. Is that the standard behavior or just happened back there on my Post-Its blog?
Besides that, i think it’s wonderful and – like someone above said – breathless. A good improvement on the hypertext/cyberspace user experience quality. People still can jumping through links but with less “destination mistakes” (that “oh my god. This is not what i expected from the link”).
And i think this kind of preview can bring another advantage. Less Bounces rates and more accuracy in statistics.
Well. That’s all folks.
Keep WordPressing.
Happy New Year! Feliz Ano Novo! Glücklich Neue Jahr!
Celso Bessa
Brasilian WordPresser
http://celsobessa.wordpress.com
I don’t have it, but I’ve seen it on other blogs and I like it. Hope I am included in the next testing round. I also would like to see it work on the links in the sidebar too.
I saw it earlier, I liked it, and then it’s gone…
Could I have it back?
Hi Matt,
I think it’s very useful, could I have it on my blog?