What is Snoopon.me?
Snoopon.me is a screen-blogging service that let people share mini-snapshots of their computer screens. Mini-snapshots of a computer screen (or screenshots in Snoopon.me speak) are taken automatically at regular intervals, typically every 10min. Recent screenshots constitute a screen trail. By observing the screen trail it is easy to grasp what somebody is doing: editing documents, browsing the web, watching a movie or playing games. The details such as contents of the document being edited stay private. Scaling down of screenshots makes texts illegible.
Snoopon.me gives your friends, fans and followers an inside scoop of your life in the computer. And it requires little or no effort. After Little Snoop has been installed, Snoopon.me account created and settings tweaked the service runs by itself. Snoopon.me even can be configured to autopost your screenshot updates to Twitter or Facebook.
Who would want to use Snoopon.me?
Snoopon.me helps many people to overcome procrastination and other unwanted urges. The possibility that your screenshot can be seen by your friends and colleagues keep you focused for a bit longer. Visits to websites your spouse would disapprove drop precipitously.
People with substantial social media clout are another group of Snoopon.me users. Snoopon.me adds a new twist to the menu of possible interactions with your Twitter followers or Facebook friends: send them a link to your screen trail or a single screenshot, reply to screenshot comments, snoop on them back.
And there are also 'snoopers' who just love to watch other people work. It is indeed mesmerizing to see other people's screenshots sliding down every few seconds. Have you ever seen texts in Hewbrew or Arabic being typed in?
Snoopon.me adds spice to the never-ending privacy on the net debate; with a touch of parody.
What about my privacy?
Being a public person entails certain concessions to privacy. Being more productive and staying focused also comes at a tradeoff. To make you feel more comfortable sharing your screen trail, Snoopon.me does the following:
- Screenshots are scaled down. The scaling down happens on your computer and only safe mini-snapshots are posted to Snoopon.me.
- The viewing size of your screenshots can be restricted to this size or even this.
- You can prevent your screenshots from appearing on the public feed on the Snoopon.me homepage.
- Screen trail has a limited length of 48, 96 or 192 screenshots. Plus any pinned down screenshots.
- Any your screenshot can be permanently deleted with a single click.
What are 'pinned down' screenshots?
Snoopon.me is a fast-paced service. It means the average lifetime of a screenshot is 4-6 hours. Afterwards it is permanently removed from Snoopon.me. Unless it was 'pinned down' by someone. A snooper who admires your wallpaper or is fascinated with your screenshot for other reason may pin it down and thus add it to his or her 'pinboard'. It is a good habit to pin a screenshot down first before adding a comment to it. It will allow your comment to last longer on Snoopon.me. Pinned down screenshots can be deleted as easily as any other your screenshot. When deleted the screenshot immediately disappears from other people pinboards.
Where is Snoopon.me?
As with many today's web services it is hard to say. Snoopon.me was created by a group of graduate students of University of Pennsylvania. Your screenshots are stored 'in the cloud' and their location is best pinpointed as somewhere in the east coast of United States. People using Snoopon.me are coming from around the world: US, UK, Germany, China, Brazil, Japan, Taiwan and 79 other countries.