Thinglink - not another fun creation brought to you by Dr. Seuss, but instead another fun toy used to make Facebook mroe productive to companies and more annoying to you, the average user.
What exactly is Thinglink?
ThingLink Tabs for Facebook — a way for artists, creators, small businesses, and individuals to share a wide range of content inside an image on your Facebook Fan Page.
Digital Trends gives us a bit of background on how Thinglink may be great to someone trying to sell products:
Basically, aside from the ability to tag your photos with your friends, location and date, ThingLink Tabs will also let you embed those tags with audio, video, and external links to whatever you might think is relevant in the photo. For example, if you’re a fashion blogger who’ve posted a picture of your outfit for the day, you can tag different parts of your attire to online shops where you bought each separate pieces. You might also tag how you’ve styled your hair and makeup with a how-to video, stick the location of your photo with a Google Map reference, or spice up the mood of your photo with a song off Spotify for accompaniment.
This sounds like a great way to market to people, right? What's the negative? Let this writer give you a scenario.
Sit back and imagine for a moment...
You are a fan of the Angel Clark Show on Facebook. You get a notification saying that you've been tagged in an image by the Angel Clark Show. You click on the image to remove the tag (those notifcations every time someone commenst get very annoying) and see that it's my awesome new logo and I'm trying to sell you a button or a bumper sticker. You have to wait for the image to load and it seems that it's taking a bit longer than you're used to (this could be because embedded in the image I have my Twitter, my Linkedin, my iTunes, my Sound Cloud, and my Youtube channel. There are pop-ups everywhere!
Suddenly you hear my latest podcast playing. Yes, Thinglink allows me to embed audio into images...
You finally get to click the "remove tag" option and shake your head at the person who had the nerve to tag you in this walking billboard ad. (One wonders, if someone tags you in an image that has been controlled with Thinglink, will Thinglink have access to your personal information? What about your friends and family?)
*I will ad that it's so frustrating when companies tag you in images as a way to basically increase their social web and use you as free advertising. The ads on Facebook are bad enough considering how targeted they are, it's almost like they know you. That's why the Angel Clark Show never tags people in pictures.*
According to wiki, Thinglink is an "in-image interactive tool".
ThingLink technology changes how people engage with photos by transforming them from a static image, into a navigational surface for exploring rich, relevant content that enhances the viewer’s knowledge and experience. Brands, publishers and bloggers utilize ThingLink in their images to share links, drive traffic, and set up image-based advertising campaigns.
Just wait until your local politicians figure out how to get everything they want you to click in a single image! Thinglink seems to be joining with Facebook just in time for the 2012 election cycle!
Thinglink gives us a prime example of how it can help reach the cunsumer on the Thinglink blog:
Maybe you’re a real estate agent and want to post videos of homes for sale inside an image of a neighborhood. Maybe you’re a small business and want to tag reviews and post audio of customer testimonials. Maybe you’re working on a film and want to release a clip a day to whet appetites. You get the picture.
Yes Thinglink, we do get the picture. Thanks for the fun little pun...
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