Users can take snapshots from artifact pages or schedule jobs to take snapshots automatically. These snapshots can be registered as mashable information sources and used individually to create basic apps. (See Snapshot Mashables for links to topics on user functions that create or use snapshots.)

In many cases, however, snapshots are meant to be used as a set, showing trends or other statistics over a period of time or over other variables. To include this information in a mashup or custom app, you use the Snapshot API to retrieve snapshots.

This is a REST API that builds on the MashZone NextGen REST API. You can use these API methods: