Thinglink

A thinglink is a freely obtainable globally unique object identifier. One could say that it is the 'open source' version of a DOI.

The idea of the thinglink was conceived in 2005 by Ulla-Maaria Mutanen after a discussion with Jimmy Wales. The entity a thinglink refers to can be both physical as well as virtual, and can be a unique item or a class of similar items.

Thinglink format

The thinglink format consist of the prefix "thing:" followed by a globally unique six-digit code, based on a triplet of numbers (0-9) followed by a triplet of non-case-sensitive letters (A- Z). If necessary, the codes can be extended. An example of a thinglink code would look like: "thing:422fjj" or "thing:422fjj". The permalink would look as follows: "http://thinglink.org/thing:422fjj"

Thinglink service

The Thinglink service is maintained by Social Objects Oy, a Finnish company owned by Ulla-Maaria Mutanen and Jyri Engeström. The service functions as a database where the thinglink object code is linked to further references, such as photos, descriptive text, tags, maker(s), owner(s), and web links. Whereas in conventional systems, such as the DOI, costly registration is necessary, anyone can register a user-account on the Thinglink service for free, add items to the database, and generate Thinglink identifiers for them. The service is developed as an open-source project on Sourceforge. The content on the service is published under a Creative Commons license.

External links

* [http://thinglink.org/ Thinglink homepage]
* [http://ullamaaria.typepad.com/thinglink Thinglink blog]
* [http://sourceforge.net/projects/thinglink/ Thinglink source code on Sourceforge]
* [http://ullamaaria.typepad.com/hobbyprincess/2005/11/what_is_a_thing.html Ulla-Maaria Mutanen blogs on 'What is a thinglink?']