I’m trying to be objective. I love startups, and I like seeing all the new ideas, and sometimes the ideas that seems silly to me at first (Twitter was one) really take off. So, I’m trying out something called Triggit.
The elevator pitch is, Triggit is a new way to add images, embed videos, and place Amazon affiliate links on your blog. Technically, I suppose it could be used with any website, but the target is definitely bloggers.
I pretty much dismissed it at first. I mean… putting an image or a YouTube video in a blog post? I need a tool for this?
But then I got a nice follow up email, asking if I’d tried it. As I was about to write back that I had no intention of using it… I figured I should at least try it. After all, if I were to come up with a new idea, a new tool, a startup company, I’d rather people try it out than dismiss it out of hand. So, why not?
To use Triggit you need to throw a bit of Javascript into your page, and add their bookmarklet to your toolbar. The bookmarklet only works in Firefox, currently — which is probably no issue, as, does anyone really use IE anymore? (I know, statistically, ‘yes’. In the target market for alpha/beta tech startups? No.)
So, I’m trying it out. Or rather, I’m thinking about trying it. I still have yet to actually use it to embed an image on here*, for a few reasons:
*UPDATE: Okay, I’ve now used it to enter the triggit logo you saw above. Adding another bullet point below…
- Haven’t been able to find any images I want to use. As far as plain old images, Triggit searches, well, Flickr. So if you can’t find an image that suits, there, you’re out of luck. I suppose I could upload an image of my choice to my Flickr account and hope that Triggit finds it when I search for it… hmm, doesn’t sound easier.
- Now that I have a fluid page design, I’m reluctant to embed YouTube videos. I’ve found a way to do it that works pretty well, but I need to do it by hand and tweak the embed code slightly. This is already very easy, a matter of cut and paste and a small edit, so no tool is needed for that.
- Amazon affiliate links…. yeah, I do have an Amazon affiliate account. And I read so much, I probably could stand to post some reviews and put up a nice little link to Amazon. However, I don’t want to do that too much; for starters, if the only reason I’m posting reviews is in the hope that you’ll click the link and I’ll earn a nickel or something… well, in some eyes that could make my reviews a little less trustworthy. By the same token, if I review books I love, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with earning a small commission for the recommendation, but… So, haven’t done that yet.
- It looks like when placing an image, you’re unable to set it to align left or right so that your text flows around it. I always like to do that, I think it looks nicer. (Yes, I do know that ‘align’ as an img attribute is deprecated, and I should probably create a left/right class that floats in the appropriate direction and use that instead. I’ll get around to that eventually.)
- UPDATE: Having used Triggit to add the image above, I note that it’s not saved to the source. This means that it’s being inserted by the Javascript function included in the header, and that the actual ‘data’ indicating that the image should be there is saved on Triggit’s servers (I’m guessing, yes? Don’t know how else that would work…). So, personally, I see this as a possible issue. If you have a lot of items on a page, all inserted by Triggit, I’m thinking that the page will take longer to load. Maybe this is negligible, maybe not. But, I like to minimize the amount of javascript on my pages that has to call out remotely, so, I’m not entirely thrilled with the idea.
Now, the technology they’ve come up with to make it work? Dynamically insert elements into a page, resize them, move them around? Great! I have to applaud the software developers that made Triggit work, it’s very cool to see in action. I just can’t think of any reason I’d want to use it.
Just to give it a fair shake, I’ll try to use it for something.
But on first glance, it’s an elegant solution to a problem that I don’t have.
So; comments?
Phil,
Thanks for the review. As you can see the Triggit tool is still a baby. Lots of work to do. Imagine the tool with lots of content (pictures,video,music, etc), advertising, widgets and other cool stuff integrated into it. Would you use it that way? The dynamic insertion approach is totally new and we are still figuring out what the best things to use it for are. What would make it great for you?
Zach
Oh yeah, we have tested load times on 100’s of Triggit inserted images and its super fast. We only load a tiny piece of code.
Hey, Zach! Thanks for stopping by.
Well, I’m not sure what it would take for me to use a tool like this; I’m pretty attached to building my html on my own. Maybe I’m odd that way, but I like to have control over all that.
Like I said, I’ll try it, and I’ll be sure to keep my eye on it even if I don’t use it now. As you add features, who knows; maybe you’ll win me over. For now… I don’t know.
But like I said… I do have to applaud the software itself. You’ve built a slick tool. Best of luck!
It a good thing that code slingers like yourself are not in our target market or I would find your post mildly disheartening. We mostly work with people who don’t like code. To someone skilled with coding, our tool might not be as compelling as to someone brand new to the internet. Thanks for the kind words about the software. Keep up the good work here, its a great blog.
Yes, my guess was that I’m probably not your target demographic. ;-)