Spot.IM targets Facebook and Twitter users with site-integrated social media tool - used by Kerrang and Red Bull
Spot.IM has launched a tool designed to let any website become its own social network with pop-up chat 'Spots' through which visitors can discuss content and the brand without having to leave the page - and the accompanying ads.
Spot.IM retains viewers by bring social to the sites
The "distributed social network" is aimed at encouraging greater user engagement on participating websites without diverting traffic to external sites such as Facebook and Twitter, using an integrated chatroom.
Spot.IM claimed this will empower publishers to improve user-engagement, retention and monetisation capabilities, freeing publishers from relying on external social networks.
Since the release of the beta, over a thousand website owners and publishers including Time Out, Kerrang, and Red Bull, have adopted Spot.IM to socialise their websites. Spot.IM’s free technology provides community creation, management and engagement tools in two lines of code.
Nadav Shoval, chief executive and co-founder of Spot.IM, said: “We’re creating a new social infrastructure that will overlay the web, giving site owners a way to join the social age and succeed.
“While existing social networks provide an effective way for publishers to reach new users and drive traffic to their site, Spot.IM gives site owners the ability to keep those users, and the conversation they have, in the place where the content was created.”
Tom White, product director of Time Out, one of the first sites to implement Spot.IM’s technology, added: “We are excited to partner with Spot.IM, we see them as a key feature in our digital strategy, presenting a unique opportunity to engage more effectively with visitors to our site.”
The tool allows real-time conversation between users in ‘Spots’ on participating websites, accessible on mobile and online.