Thinglink

ThingLink
Type	Private
Industry	Internet Technology
Founded	2008
Headquarters	Helsinki, Finland
Key people	Ulla Engeström, CEO, Janne Jalkanen CTO
Products	Rich Media Tag
Employees	14 (2011)
Website	www.thinglink.com

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

[edit] ThingLink

ThingLink LLC (Thinglink Oy in Finland) is a Finnish-American provider of in-image interaction tools. ThingLink is helping define pop culture with a transformational, engaging, adoptable, and viral media/content serving format.

ThingLink, launched in 2008 and led by Ulla Engeström and Janne Jalkanen, develops tools for image interaction that allow content sharing via online images. 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.

[edit] Company History

2005: Founder Ulla Engeström met with Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia at Reboot Conference in Copenhagen, and discussed a new standard for identifying both virtual and physical objects and linking them to information on the Internet.

2006: Social Objects Oy, a Helsinki-based incubator owned by Ulla and Jyri Engeström, started developing ThingLink as a global unique identifier for the long tail^{[disambiguation needed ]} market. Unique identifiers are seen as a technological pre-requisite for enabling object navigation.

2007: With a supporting grant from the Finnish Technology Agency (TEKES), Social Objects Oy continued to develop and test various user scenarios for object navigation on the web and via mobile phones, including NFC.

2008: ThingLink LLC was founded in Palo Alto, California.

2009: ThingLink launched a Private Beta version of the service that enables consumers, designers, and brands to identify and converse around products.

2010: ThingLink launched a public version of the service that enables everyone to navigate through objects in images, and to share those images with their social network. Thinglink Oy raises a seed-financing round.

2011: ThingLink launched Rich Media Tags, an innovative new product that enables anyone to add the content and functionality of other websites and social platforms directly into their images. Rich Media Tags have so far been developed for some of the world’s leading social content platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Spotify, Vimeo, Wikipedia, SoundCloud and Twitter.

ThingLink and SoundCloud launched the first use of a sound/music player inside a digital image.

Atlantic Records launched Simple Plan's Get Your Heart On CD using ThingLink, the first major record company to tap into the engagement potential of interactive images.

ThingLink hired Neil Vineberg, former head of Vineberg Communications, as CMO, to open up U.S. market to relationships with key companies in music, entertainment, publishing and digital marketing.

[edit] Rich Media Tags®

In 2010 ThingLink launched Rich Media Tags®, making interacting with different social content platforms possible within a single image.

When linked with a URL to one of the rich media enabled sites, a tag appears revealing the related content. These tags will then be revealed every time a viewer scrolls their mouse over the uploaded image. By using ThingLink, publishers can also include links to other social networks, blogs, news and commerce sites that are yet to have Rich Media Tags created.