Thumbshots on your favorite search engines?

Hi ,
Will you like thumbshots appear on your favorite search engines like Google, Yahoo and msn? Thumbshots are thumbnail screenshots of web pages that allow you to visualize web sites or preview links before clicking. In fact, many other search engines already used it and it shows an increase in traffic.
Here is an example of a search engine using thumbshots => http://www.blintz.com/

Personally, I can't wait to see thumbshots in yahoo or google. A picture worths thousand words!Thumbshots help me to easily distinguish a commercial site from an amateur site. I can do my search much faster
So, what do you think ?

_________________
Chrissy
Volunteer at Thumbshots.org
http://www.thumbshots.org

Check out thumbshots ranking tool: http://ranking.thumbshots.com

they're interesting, but I don't find them all that useful.

if I was on 56k I'd definitely want them off.

not all websites have thumbshots, at least not including mine

I really like it, and image file is not a problem since more and more people are using high speed now

Average search results page is almost 400kb, terrible for 56ers, frustrating enough for cable users.

Not a good idea. We need good search engine results, not cute pictures. Anyway, Google seems to love ugly, plain and simple websites with no fancy flash or images on it.

Just because a site has nice pictures on it doesn't mean it has good content. Don't forget about the saying "Don't judge a book by it's cover"

I see many people think that thumbshots will slow down the search result pages. But I don't think there's problem with cable, only to dial-up user if many thumbshots are on a page because Thumbshot is very small in size, about 3kB, and can be downloaded quickly. In fact, thumbshots are helpful for users running on slow modem because users see where they are going and do not waste their time clicking to undesirable sites.


But thumbshots are more than just cute pictures. It gives visual cue of how a website looks like before you have to click on it to see it. Imagine a website with bad interface and few contents, you don't want to waste time to click on it, right?


Yes, I agree. But you can eliminate bad sites quickly (eg. almost blank website). Thumbshots has the WYSIWYG idea. And if the site is no longer available (404 File Not Found, 400 Bad Request, etc.) , it will provide friendly visual feedback to users so that you don't have to waste time clicking on it.

So then we will get "picture spamming", people creating some fancy frontpage so it will get more clicks.

Not all websites will show thumbshots. Thumbshots.org only provide thumbshots for links that appear in the DMOZ Open Directory for free. If your site is not listed in DMOZ, then they do not support it at thumbshots.org.

_________________
Chrissy
Volunteer at Thumbshots.org
http://www.thumbshots.org

Check out thumbshots ranking tool: http://ranking.thumbshots.com

Do the thumbshots get updated and if so how often?

For the Open Thumbshots Project, we try to update once a month on "active" sites.
The robot automatically determines whether a particular site should be updated more or less frequently depending on the activity of that site. With time and experience, the robot will adjust to optimally match a site's activity.

_________________
Chrissy
Volunteer at Thumbshots.org
http://www.thumbshots.org

Check out thumbshots ranking tool: http://ranking.thumbshots.com

It's kinda neat. Takes up too much space for my taste and I'm hooked on google. But I do like it. I found my site in there but did not see a thumb shot.. it said preview not available. Where do those results come from?

You only get a thumbshot if you're listed in DMOZ.


That should work well then. I have a thumbshot of one of my sites on alexa, from about 4 years ago, they could do with a similar sort of setup.

Thumbshots will definitely come into picture with time (well..it has already started appearing).
But, what I will say is...it should ideally come with an option like:

• View without Thimbshots
• View with Thumbshots

Why tease the people who don't have cables? :sad:

So, one good point is:
One site with catchy look will always have an edge against one with a plain-simple look.

So, designers gear up!!! 8)

Regards
WC

It does make things easier. I remember instances from last week when I was browing a website via DMOZ and I almost remembered the category but not the URL. There I went to thumbshots and in 2-3 clicks I found the site I was looking for....!! Picture always stays longer in your mind then text

Very much true. Picture does register in human mind better that text!
I am with you.
Just wanted to have an option...as I feel for people using dial-ups (as I also do at times).

8)
Regards
WC