Thinglink (FI+ Int)
Thinglink – a free product code for creative work
Presentation:
Kiasma seminar room // Fri 31 March 11:00 // free entrance
www.ullamaaria.typepad.com/thinglink
Web users find products (books, music, web pages) increasingly based on other people’s recommendations. Recommendation systems like Amazon, Last.fm, and Delicious rely on unique identifiers (ISBNs / Amazon Identification Numbers, Music Brainz IDs, URLs) for the products they describe. These identifiers make it possible to point to products online. Small producers such as artists, designers, and crafters, however, do not have an easy access to commercial product codes, and therefore, their work is not equally recommendable online.
Thinglink is an initiative to build a free product code and an open database for creative work. Thinglinks are unique, 6 digit identifiers that anybody can use for connecting physical or virtual objects to online information about them. In other words, a thinglink on an object is an indication that there is some information about the object in the Internet — perhaps a blog post, a website, photos, or some comments on a discussion site.
The purpose of the Thinglink project is to develop the visibility of cultural products in the Internet. For ordinary people it offers an easy way to learn about art or design projects in relation to their makers, materials, production/construction techniques or ideologies. Artists, designers, and crafters can use thinglinks to document and promote their work in the Internet.
At Pixelache 2006, Ulla-Maaria Mutanen will offer of sneak preview to the beta version of thinglink.org, which will be published in April 2006. On this site artists, designers, and crafters will be able to
- a) register unique product codes for their work
- b) search projects by maker, tag or keyword
- c) comment other people’s work
- d) publish and print personalized thinglink-stickers
For more information, contact: Ulla-Maaria Mutanen, ulla [[at]] hobbyprincess.com.