Apture: demo of cool service to build “super links”

by on March 31, 2009

[blip.tv ?posts_id=1949202&dest=-1]

As a blogger we have just one choice to build a link. Write an A HREF tag which builds a link like this one to Apture’s home page.

But Tristan Harris had a better idea. What if bloggers could build much better links to all sorts of things that could be opened up right on the page. Videos. Photos. Multiple articles. Etc.

Here he shows me how it works and how the New York Times is using it to make their pages more useful. By doing that content sites and blogs also keep you around longer and give you more opportunities to see their ads, so everyone wins.

This is very cool and I’ll be using this technology after I get my blog moved over to its own server (should be in the next week).

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  • pelechati
    Did you ever get Apture installed on your site? Not noticing it anywhere :)
  • Wow ! It's really an eye opener for "such technology" being used in link building !
  • BetaTester
    This is very cool, potentially huge.

    Apture - as far as I´m concerned, your two biggest challenges are speed (how quickly the widget thing opens once you click) and the size of the icon within the text, as it potentially cuts a smooth reading experience.

    Nice work.
  • Funny, my user perspective is opposite -- I like having the reference right there without having to load another tab/page. From the site perspective, I love it. It's very cool to have the ability to link up a reference and give the user instant access to it.

    I was never a fan of the popup site thumbnails (snap?) because they didn't offer any value for the effort, but the apture data is much, much different.
  • I'm not sure why so many people seem intent on creating pop-up this and that on their sites.

    From a site-owner perspective, it makes a lot of sense because it pads your time-on-site like crazy.

    From a user perspective, it's annoying as hell. At least to me.

    In the long run, it has to be about adding value to the user. We'll see if I'm in the minority or the majority, but I avoid sites with popup-links like the plague.
  • Oops! Vlogger is not a new blogging platform. I meant Blogger...
  • I just tried Apture out in a test run on my Vlogger blog, and it is really cool. I'm going to try and incorporate it as soon as there is a fit. I think it will be really useful, or it will be overkill. We'll just have to wait and see!
  • what's stopping people/readers/lurkers from getting fed up with the little boxes and popups? most of us already have a deep-seated hatred for popup windows, and involuntary popup ANYTHING since popups were invented. what's stopping people (even loyal followers) for giving up on the site completely?

    i sense an upswing in the use of things like google reader.

    how are you going to combat the loss of readers?
  • rob
    how annoying! I love boring old traditional links and hate popups so will be blocking this with adblock plus methinks...
  • This looks like a very nice tool. I'm also not a fan of popups but I'd have to try it. Perhaps the fact that it only pops out on click and not on mouseover makes the difference. I'd be interested how the sites you link to feel about this. When you talk about the increasing time visitors spend on your pages it basically means you are "stealing" visits (and ads) from the sites you are linking to. I'd guess many wouldn't be happy about this.
  • sm
    I have "wandering mouse syndrome" , disenchantedtech talks about too.
  • Christopher Coulter
    Rich Media Pop Ups, Snap Shots Part Deuce. Um, that's worth $4.1 million? On the Post, and Chronicle, half the time, 404. If the 'concept' catches on, per data-linking, (which is highly doubtful itself) expect 10 million copycats. Early worms get eaten. Their mash-up focus, is a sure deadpool.

    People view media in the context of the whole layout, story here, video or pictures marry coupled, this concept loses the flow -- useful for quick snippets perhaps, but you'd be better served with real database pages like whatbird.com or similar.

    Who is really going to watch long videos in pop-up video boxes?
  • I tried it out as I was watching the video and had the Wordpress plugin nstalled and running before the video was finished.

    I like it, but when I link I prefer to link to someone's official site, rather than Wikipedia. So that was tough to find, and I need to write it in...but the rest of it works very well.

    It's a great start, thanks for the tip and thanks to Apture (great name)
  • I've been using Apture on my site (http://c3sart.com) and I love it. It makes blogging so much more interactive. Their recent Twitter integration is great and one of my favorite features. Just make sure to use class="aptureNoenhance" when you have a link that doesn't merit an Apture pop-up.

    Now if only they could fix the mailto link interactions, they would be heroes in my book. :)

    Keep up the great work dudes!
  • I just wanted to say thanks to Scoble for visiting us yesterday and showing us off here on the blog! And to all of you, thanks for the overwhelmingly positive support.
    @disenchantedtech, customization abilities are on our radar so that you can adapt your Apture experience, as well as your readers' Apture experiences.
    @myphotoscout, we are always adding new providers, and are very committed to a diverse and democratic web with data from many places and spaces. Keep and eye out for more and different sources of information.
    Please feel free to get in touch with us if you all have other great ideas or suggestions. We are working hard to build an application that meets bloggers' and readers' needs.
  • I really don't like stuff that pops up. Also, it's leaving people on Netbooks and other slower or older computers/browser behind.

    This is overhead, which may prevent your readers from enjoying the site -- bad in my book...
  • I'm loving this service..just installed last night. They need to integrate with Windows Live Writer like Zemanta. Thanks for the heads-up Robert.
  • I wonder if this will draw even more visitors to large sites and get us one step closer to the monculture on the web.
    Why Google maps and not Live or Yahoo?
    Why Youtube and not any of the other ones?
  • Yep. It's cool. I just replaced Snapshots with it. I added some media to you on my post about your leaving Fast Co. http://www.mediadeluge.com/post/84145698/robert...

    Also cool, if you have a friendfeed widget, it automatically creates dynamic in-site links out of the "@" posts so you can see the mini bio and recent tweets / post of the people in the feed.
  • Just installed on a few sites.. It's pretty badass
  • This is fantastic and dare I say it ... Web 3.0 where instead of linking to web pages, you link to data.

    Really early stage stuff, the concept will be huge, but not sure about Apture itself since proprietary solutions like this usually don't win. This is similar to Microsoft Accelerators in the new version of IE and Zementa, but neither of them are as slick as Apture.

    People hated snap text because things popped up when you moused over, this is user initiated which again: fantastic.

    I'm really loving this, thanks for sharing Scoble.
  • Wow! What a cool way to build a better site experience. I will be trying this for sure.
  • Shahin
    http://famspam.com/facebox

    Similar concept better execution
  • It's very clever but I don't like stuff to pop up as I hover over it, I have a bad habit known as wandering mouse syndrome (yes - I just made that up) where I subconciously move the mouse around while I'm reading something and I don't want little boxes popping up while I do that.
    Since when did hovering over something become a request for action?
  • I use it! It's amazing! I'm surprised people haven't heard of it before! It's immense! :)
  • Not 100% sure if I will use it, but I will try it.

    What do you think of my service? (url in comment)
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