Back in June image tagging startup ThingLink launched Rich Media Tags for publishers, allowing anyone to interact with an image tag which might be embedded music, video, words, pictures and tags for people. But this is still a product aimed at publishers. The real power to come from image tagging is going to be setting it free. Thus today it’s launching a rich media tag creator enabling app developers to build custom ThingLink-powered applications.
Until now users and image owners needed to get ThingLink to give them a customised service for their app. Now they can do it themselves via this API.
Rich Media Tags can be applied to any image, enabling the embedding of links on YouTube videos, Spotify tracks, Wikipedia, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and other platforms. They increase the amount of time people spend interacting with an image, and thus on site and can lead to transactions.
ThingLink CMO Neil Vineberg wants “corporations and small businesses to build a presence on the ThingLink Image Network by creating branded applications and promotional content for their services.”
Canadian pop punk band, Simple Plan, is using it to reveal details of their new album via the album cover artwork for instance. And Berlin’s Morning Post used it to explain the Bin-Laden raid Situation Room in May.
Competitors include Stipple and Luminate, though these tend to be more geared to ecommerce. It feels like ThingLink is making a play here to become a global platform.
Thinglink has received early-stage funding from European investors Inventure and Lifeline Ventures.