Launching: private beta of thinglink.com, a new social media for design lovers

On April 22nd at the Milan Furniture Fair, we'll launch the new private beta of thinglink.com.

I'm incredibly excited about next week. At points, between having two kids in 18 months and moving to California, I thought this day would never come!

In searching for a good definition of the new Thinglink, I've skipped around adjectives such as "social" and "open" to describe the service we're building. The point is that Thinglink is a conversational platform. It enables users to post thoughts, ideas, questions and pictures related to products on the web.

Creating and aggregating conversation around items that belong to the invisible tail motivated the development of the original Thinglink identifiers. We now have a chance to try the idea of "social objects" (in the literal sense) in practice. I'm excited to be working with Arabia, Design Eero Aarnio, Iittala, Harri Koskinen, Martela, Ilmari Tapiovaara Design, Woodnotes and other designers and brands who've already started to explore the possibilities of this new platform.

One of my favorite ways to put Thinglink to work to benefit the design community is to digitize original product photos from vintage design catalogs. If you know people at museums or companies who would be interested to republish their photo archives, please let me know!

Ok. It's time for me to go pack my bags. I'll be at the Social Web Foo Camp this weekend and from there I'm heading to Milan (with Ella, who just turned 5 months). It should be interesting: Alice Rawsthorn wrote in the New York Times just a few hours ago that "New York, Paris, London, Tokyo and dozens of other cities now sport their own furniture fairs, but none matches Milan. It is still the best place for young designers to make their names, and for manufacturers to launch new products."

Meanwhile, get yourself a Thinglink invitation and start creating some whuffie for the things you love!

Comments

[Timo]

Good stuff, it's looking great in there!

[Ulla-Maaria]

Thanks Timo! If you have ideas for improving the site, let me know.