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June
16, 2005
Overview
 Florence-based
Tuscany.org (http://www.tuscany.org)
is a niche directory for the popular central region in Italy containing
listings of sites on all areas of activity in Tuscany, from tourism targeted
sites to those of local businesses, from arts and events to general
informational sites. Tuscany.org's team
monitors the number of clicks each listing receives. Since the directory
integrated thumbshots in December 2004, the team noticed a visible percentage
increase in the number of clicks for listings with thumbshots receive in
comparison to those without screenshots by up to 5 times.
Thumbshots are screenshots of web pages in thumbnail sizes
providing users a preview of the sites before they click on any of them. The
goal of the Tuscany Directory is to provide subjective reviews of the content
and value of each listed site so that, along with the thumbshot, users can
evaluate and decide which sites they are most interested in visiting.
Created and managed by WebPromoter (http://www.webpromoter.it),
the Tuscany directory is one of the first applications for the agency's
vertical directory platform. Users of the directory have given numerous
positive feedbacks, including the usefulness of having the Thumbshots
screenshot previews to aid in selecting which sites to visit.
About Thumbshots.org
The Open Thumbshots Project (http://www.thumbshots.org)
is an open and non-profit initiative by Smartdevil.com (http://www.smartdevil.com)
that contributes back to the Internet community. Thumbshots.org provides free
thumbshot preview images available for download and by direct request.
Thumbshots.org is made possible through community efforts and donations.
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