Snap's (only) Competitive Advantage + Their Blog Marketing Brilliance
Snap is almost 2 years old. Andy wrote about it when it launched in late 2004.

What's NEW at Snap is the split SERPs, with text results on the left and corresponding screenshots on the right. (Note that Google was caught experimenting with page previews in 2004... They certainly haven't gone so far as to split SERPs that I've seen though.)

This lumbering, Snap-focused micro-opus first investigates the site preview functionality and its competitive advantage for Snap (NONE), CPA as a threat to mainstream search companies and finally spews hyperbole on Snap's blog marketing efforts.

Enjoy!

--Increasing Discovery Moments in Recovery Searches--
In Battelle's the Search, which I recently read and passed to Adam Schultz, Battelle says that all searches fall into one of two categories.

All searches are either:
recovery searches, conducted when users seek to remember something, i.e. find that one site that was so useful that one time

discovery searches, which for me is exemplified in the SE research process when I'm getting excited about something and building a concept map for myself

(concept map sort of = media map)(Most recently I'm flipped out on Machinima and building a concept map. Adam's helping. Google Video has good Red vs. Blue footage...).

Snap's double column of snippets and screen shots will make for some interesting moments of DISCOVERY during a work-related *recovery* search, in as much as a well-designed site or catchy graphic could lead one down that rabbit hole of unexpected lateral connection making.

I hold that the visuals will drive usage because of the moments of discovery and surprise... not to mention the SERPs-to-sites back and forthing it will reduce.

--Increased Usage by Better Informing Users--
Snap takes the Ask binoculars concept one step further (I'm sure it's been done before... but has it been done at least as well as Snap?).

Casie Gillette, an SEO Analyst here at MarketSmart Interactive, recently surveyed 50 Ask searchers on the effects of the binocular preview on their click-through rates (we'll be publishing this tomorrow or Friday). In short, her work showed that the site preview GREATLY influenced which sites people clicked through on.

Casie conducted her study because of her strong interest in usability (we offer usability here at MSI). Her investigation PLUS this Snap development points for me to a future where the way your site appears visually plays an enormous role in SERPs click-throughs.

In Changes in SERPs Display and Relevance Measures Will Fuse Organic SEM and PR I write about a possible SERPs future in which "Google shifts from a snippets-based method of displaying results to a more visual conceptual-zoom SERPs display format. Snippet-based rankings as we've known them are contextualized, erasing our careful copy writing into an algorithmic editor's decision regarding how our pages fit in to a given concept."

I hold that page previews - as demonstrated in Snap - is one of the links between ten blue links and this conceptually organized future I wrote about.

--Is There Any Competitive Advantage in Snap's Site Previews?--
F*** NO!

If this proves useful and drives Snap adoption how long would it take for any other search engine to adopt or leap frog the concept?

Google's response would a) tie into Google Co-op and b) enable users to toggle previews on and off.

Yahoo's response would include user data from 360 and MyWeb (and is likely to appear in MyWeb first I suspect).

If this is indeed successful it's just a matter of time. Snap, for now, has only ONE competitive advantage...

--Pay Per Conversion as Click Fraud (and therefore Google) Killer?--
Though pay per conversion in search engines is at least as old as Snap's initial launch in 2004, the stage has changed, as noted by one search marketer in a Mercury News story on Snap:

"Dashtizad [of intermix] said the conversion rate -- how often a person who clicks on an ad and either buys a product, makes a donation or signs up for a service -- has gone from one new customer per every 20 or 30 clicks to one new customer per every 50 clicks."

I'm not entirely sure I quite follow how Snap's going to make f--- you money on this, given the blurriness surrounding why advertisers won't set desired action prices at $.01.

With Snap, advertisers decide how much they are willing to pay if a customer completes a certain action -- like buying a product or filling out a form. Advertisers submit their bids and create a keyword campaign.

If a Snap user visits an advertiser's site and completes the desired action, the advertiser pays Snap. Otherwise, the only cost is a $50 non-refundable sign-up deposit.

This model, as click fraud rubs the "gee whiz" off of pay-per-click, could drive a new wave of excitement in search. Snap had best hurry up with syndicating these ads for publishers though (perhaps using the Search Vortals expansion model complete with enabling MySpace users to earn beer money).

Snap as an engine will never dethrone Google, Yahoo, Ask or even MSN. Where they can beat them in the short term is through syndicating those CPA ads.

I suspect the CPA model - vs. PPC - would not prove as profitable in a side-by-side test for any of the major search engines.

If Snap can successfully marry CPA with the search metaphor, which they haven't done in a significant way thus far that I can tell (given that I haven't heard of any of the MAJORS going in this direction) we may see some disruption in the search space.

Especially if CPA can kill click fraud (as it stands now... there will be people who figure out how to cheat CPA too).

--AND, DEAR READER, DO NOTE THE SNAP BLOG BRILLIANCE--
Snap's blog/PR efforts are HIGHLY NOTABLE in that they're bringing LOTS of great ideas together in once place. I haven't done search-one in the engine yet (ok I have now, but I wrote this section first) but I'm flipping out on their blog.

First off Snap invited the search community to suggest ways to launch Snap. In the comments of the blog folks have left their thoughts and can VOTE on their favorite idea.

sidenote: I suggested comment voting to Ben Trott during the PreFound social search conference weekend as a means of getting more out of comments... in that comments are both the poorest organized and often most valuable parts of a blog.

My idea was to then organize comments by number of votes. In Snap's blog you can organize by most recent idea submission OR most votes

Also note that the Snap blog enables voters to put a box on their sites that links back to their personal suggestions for how the engine should launch.

In addition the blog lists the most popular ideas on the side, and shows blog visitors the site's activity in a graph.

Also note that they're paying $5,000 to the person with the most votes and the SITE that refers the person who submitted the winning idea.

To make it more interesting, Snap is awarding $5,000 to the person(s) with the launch idea that gets the most votes from this community, AND $5,000 to the blog that is credited with referring the person with the winning idea.

--Notable Advice for Snap--
John Battelle: Focus on The Core

It strikes me that great new ideas move in this space due to two big factors: one, a core group of passionate users adopt the service, and two, they evangelize that service without compensation - they believe that what they are using is better, and they want to share that with the world. So to launch Snap, I’d focus on that core group of folks - who are they? What makes them unique? This group should emerge in the next few weeks as the service gets banged on. Engage this core group in conversation, surface that conversation in your marketing, help them evangelize your product and define what the vision is.

Philipp Lenssen: 10 Tips to Best Launch Snap

Here’s my take on how to best launch (or relaunch) a search engine like Snap. I’m being paid to write here, but can say whatever I want — cool!

Interesting that they paid Lenssen to write some tips... a good call I think. Maybe they'll pay me now too ;)

Garrett French: Syndicate Pay Per Conversion Ads

Syndicate Snap SERPs and ads to niche verticals through Snap API. Make the index and algo easy for publishers to configure with a GUI.

--Licensing Collective Wisdom--
One VERY INTERESTING aspect of Snap is that, per Battelle, it's "licensing ISP clickstream data and feeding it back into its relevance engine." (This news noted in 2004 in Web 2.0 - Bill Gross Launches Snap Search Engine)

Will we ever see Amazon license its user reviews? Will we ever see Flikr license its folksonomies? Will eBay license its buyer and seller rating data?

There have probably been other instances of licensed collective wisdom data, but the web 2.0 meme pwns my brain right now so the concept seems fresh and new to me.

Other Coverage:
Snap blurs search-ad lines (one of two angles it seems folks are writing about... ad/serps blur or CPA)
New search engine's ads pay-per-action (much drooling over CPA)
Is Snap the Next "A9"? (Greg Sterling: hoopla and gee-whiz factor does not equal mainstream adoption)
Snap Realizes Own Desperation, Uses it as a Marketing Angle (seobook skewers, Snap's Jason Fields begs for a conceptual revisitation. Nice work Jason!)
Snap Rethinks Search (Battelle)
Snap's Press Release PDF via SEW.

Note to Snap:
Snap people I would love to have a conversation! Email me: selowdown@gmail.com and please leave any responses to this post in the comments.
Garrett French - MarketSmart Interactive | permalink | +marktd |