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Fun with ThingLink

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Image hotspots have been around for a long time—since at least HTML3—and have allowed developers to add interactivity to graphics.

You know, hover over a state in a map of the US, see the name pop up, and then click to get routed to an informational page.

And of course, Flash and Silverlight have come along to provide ultimate interactivity and media capabilities. But the emphasis has always been on developers, especially with the aforementioned tools.

ThingLink is a San Francisco startup that is bringing hotspots, which they call Rich Media Tags, within reach of HTML- and ActionScript- challenged publishers.

That means bloggers, Tumblrs, etc. can quickly add linkable, position-aware icons to their pics.

Obvious applications are in music (remember pop-up videos?), and ThingLink can count Billboard as a user (see reference below). On their Tumblr page, Billboard fans can gaze upon album art, read interesting factoids and watch embedded videos as they mouse over the image, and then click to learn more information about the artist.

How does this Thing work? Their clever software currently links with WordPress (.org, not .com), Tumblr, Blogger, Drupal, and few other platforms. Depending on the publishing software, you either install a plugin or embed a bit of Javascript provided by TL.

After making sure you’re logged into ThingLink, you bring up your blog page and an embedded tag editor will magically appear.

Writer, editors, and content managers then mark up the image with Rich Media Tags using TL’s Javascript-based editor. Regular viewers on the other hand will only see the graphical hotspots, and also an “embed icon”, which is a bit of scripting that can be copied into another site thereby allowing images to go viral.

Publishers use ThingLink for driving traffic and gain revenue through associated marketing deals. To gain a revenue stream of their own, Vineberg tells me ThinkLink will be introducing for-pay B2B platforms in the coming weeks.

And what about travel pics, you’re no doubt asking: can they be tagged?

With Wanderfly, the travel ideas site, having focused my mind on Edinburgh, I thought I would add a few Rich Media Tag footnotes to their spectacular photo of the parade grounds behind the Castle.

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