Bringing a New Dimension To The Visual Web

In September we asked our users about offline viewing, and in less than a week we got over 200 replies. Over 80% of all the respondents said they need offline viewing because of weak wi-fi connection. This was mentioned by schools and companies operating in remote areas or schools that did not allow the use of Internet at all. The most popular use cases for offline viewing in our survey were: 

In 2012, ThingLink was the first media platform to bring interactive image sharing to Twitter. The feature was hugely popular especially among customers who use ThingLink for creating editorial content and marketing campaigns.  Later on, Twitter changed their product policy for 3rd party embeds, and the integration stopped working.

ThingLink user: VRM Arena Tour - VRM is a regional media company that uses ThingLink in this article to give readers the experience of touring the Opel Arena in Germany.  The tour begins with an aerial view outside of the stadium and readers can click on the various illustrations to explore points of interest.  For example, clicking the field will take you to a 360° view from on the field, and clicking the shopping bag will take you to explore the stadium store.  This use case highlights the ability to include regular flat images into your 360° tour.  Including a regular image as your starting point gives the reader an easy to navigate table of contents that they can revisit at any point within the tour. 

Many real estate agents from small local shops to large commercial brands are leveraging interactive content to tell more visual stories or market properties more effectively.  In this blog post you will learn four project ideas for using ThingLink interactive content in your real estate marketing, communications and property tours. These include 1) schematic floor plans 2) concept designs 3) project site maps and 4) property tours. 

Watch this short video to acquaint yourself with how easy it is to create a ThingLink with out latest updates included.   In this video you will learn the 3-step process of uploading content, using the five tag layouts available, and publishing your content.   We are always looking to improve our product and would love to hear from you with feedback or feature requests, don't hesitate to get in touch!  

360 cameras allow you to take high-quality images for your school, business or marketing project. However, if you do not have the funding for such equipment or just want to try out 360 images, you can use the free Google Street View app on your phone. Continue reading to learn how to actually take these photos on the app, exporting them to ThingLink, and some live examples! 

ThingLink user: CoMap Control - marketing your products visually in today's web environment is critical when it comes to capturing attention and presenting information in an engaging way for customers.  Using interactive hotspots to deconstruct and market your products is an easy and powerful method for continuing your product's story through a piece of visual content where normally it could be challenging to design the necessary text within an illustration.  Using text, image and video hotspots, CoMap Control visually breaks down the key features and selling points for one of their intelligent electronic control products and solutions.  Continue reading to explore the live example. 

ThingLink user: Cincinnati Orchestra - take a virtual trip directly into the conductors chair of the Cincinnati Orchestra with this interactive 360° tour.  Learners can navigate through each section of the orchestra, hearing specific instruments in the background, seating arrangement locations, and explore embedded Wikipedia pages on each instrument.  ThingLink 360° tours can be consumed on any device, screen size, and within VR headsets powered by WebVR (view compatible headsets). This content was captured with a Go Pro 360 camera. 

ThingLink user: MSF - Refugees around the world: Stories of survival 

Description:  There are now 70.8 million people forced from home around the world—more than at any time in modern history. For World Refugee Day, MSF featured stories of survival—a collection of video testimonies and first-hand accounts from people who have risked everything for a chance at safety.  Using an interactive world Map created with ThingLink, MSF allows readers to learn more about the stories that appear throughout the article through one visual table of contents. 

At BETT London 2019 we set ourselves an ambitious roadmap that included several product updates aiming at one goal: Making it easier for educators in small and large organizations to create engaging and accessible visual learning experiences, and for learners to express themselves using multiple forms of media.