3 ms·

Show HN: Linkz.ai – Live link previews on hover

13 points by vittor1o 3y ago

Hi, I'm Vittorio, and I'm improving the Internet browsing. However, I'm not building another web browser. As a big Wikipedia & Google Docs user, I liked how a minor addition of link previews on hover positively enhanced the UX. My goal is to similarly improve the UX of other websites & the Internet overall. Generating link previews on hover at scale fast is quite a problem. However, I solved similar scalability problems at MS. With a lot of serverless & caching - Linkz.ai was born. Linkz.ai live link previews allow website owners, bloggers & publishers to maximize visitor retention. Each hyperlink gets a popup with a link summary; And for hyperlinks to videos, rich media, articles & files - Linkz.ai will automatically extract & show hyperlinked content or iframe inside your website. The goal is to provide visitors with enough extra context to keep them on the original website. As a result, end-users are following fewer links, increasing retention for website owners, reducing tab-overload for themselves, and making the Internet greener :) PS To address the elephant in the room, there is no AI in the product at the moment. I know it contradicts with the name; I just believe it adds intelligence to a website that installs the product. [1] https://linkz.ai https://linkz.ai [2] Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr9WErZCjVY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr9WErZCjVY

primemil 3y ago
I've built something similar before for my previous company's wiki, even before Google Docs introduced their link preview. It was quite well received, and I think it is still used there. I like your implementation, and I think that extra logic that you have on click - extracting embed & displaying it within the website - is quite smart!
- vittor1o 3y ago
  Thank you! Curious how did you implementation look like!
phphp 3y ago
Reminded me of the Arc browser and its AI 5-second link preview feature. When I saw Arc's implementation, I thought, why do you need AI when you can save compute and just show OpenGraph info. I guess this is what you are doing with Linkz.ai.
- vittor1o 3y ago
  I also saw Arc's previews, and thought the same thing :) Yes we are relying on OpenGraph, Oembed (and scraping in some cases). I was very happy to see Arc's release, as it brings awareness to this functionality! I wish this translated to Google traffic :)
crowning 3y ago
I saw similar tools as browser extensions, but I think it's quite smart to package this for the website owners to buy & install. This way, it's more clear how to monetise and sustain this. Have you considered packaging this as a browser extension?
- m1chael_k 3y ago
  I used the extension before called Survol, it was quite nice. But it only showed the description & thumbnail of the hyperlink. I think showing linked text or embed on click in the overlay is useful! Great job on the execution!
- vittor1o 3y ago
  Yes I explored the browser extension direction, but the business model & our cost-per-link-preview-generation does not work yet. Making the website owner to pay for it makes the business math work much better.
zz_down 3y ago
Congrats on good execution! This solution looks quite unique from a product perspective, though it makes sense that it should exist. I wish you luck! I know it is quite hard to market something that people might not be looking for.
- vittor1o 3y ago
  Thank you! Spot on about challenges with marketing something where you don't have comparable products and defined pain. Please prove me wrong:)
dayv1d 3y ago
It's good! I actually just went through the signup process, and indeed, it took me 2 minutes to install and see the previews on my blog. I don't know whether your pricing will work for a casual blogger, but the product is interesting. For bigger publishers, it's definitely easier to justify the expense, especially if you can show some ROI on increasing ad revenues because of better retention.
- AlexTr0y 3y ago
  I think it is super easy to justify expense for something like this for anyone doing text-based content marketing through blogs or articles.
- vittor1o 3y ago
  Good idea on communicating ROI this way. I have not though about it. As for casual bloggers, there is a "free" version. But message me through the chat on Linkz.ai, I'll do a special plan for casual HN bloggers :)
sm1th_sm1th 3y ago
There was another HN thread today about Google Scholar PDF Reader - they introduced a citations preview in a popup. Question. Can Linkz.ai be integrated into the PDF-viewer?
- vittor1o 3y ago
  Yes, but it depends. The PDF-viewer should have <a href> HTML markup to which link preview popups can attach. I know people have integrated Linkz.ai into the PDF.JS open source lib.

13 points by vittor1o 3y ago

primemil 3y ago

I've built something similar before for my previous company's wiki, even before Google Docs introduced their link preview. It was quite well received, and I think it is still used there. I like your implementation, and I think that extra logic that you have on click - extracting embed & displaying it within the website - is quite smart!

vittor1o 3y ago
Thank you! Curious how did you implementation look like!

phphp 3y ago

Reminded me of the Arc browser and its AI 5-second link preview feature. When I saw Arc's implementation, I thought, why do you need AI when you can save compute and just show OpenGraph info. I guess this is what you are doing with Linkz.ai.

vittor1o 3y ago
I also saw Arc's previews, and thought the same thing :) Yes we are relying on OpenGraph, Oembed (and scraping in some cases). I was very happy to see Arc's release, as it brings awareness to this functionality! I wish this translated to Google traffic :)

crowning 3y ago

I saw similar tools as browser extensions, but I think it's quite smart to package this for the website owners to buy & install. This way, it's more clear how to monetise and sustain this. Have you considered packaging this as a browser extension?

m1chael_k 3y ago
I used the extension before called Survol, it was quite nice. But it only showed the description & thumbnail of the hyperlink. I think showing linked text or embed on click in the overlay is useful! Great job on the execution!
vittor1o 3y ago
Yes I explored the browser extension direction, but the business model & our cost-per-link-preview-generation does not work yet. Making the website owner to pay for it makes the business math work much better.

zz_down 3y ago

Congrats on good execution! This solution looks quite unique from a product perspective, though it makes sense that it should exist. I wish you luck! I know it is quite hard to market something that people might not be looking for.

vittor1o 3y ago
Thank you! Spot on about challenges with marketing something where you don't have comparable products and defined pain. Please prove me wrong:)

dayv1d 3y ago

It's good! I actually just went through the signup process, and indeed, it took me 2 minutes to install and see the previews on my blog. I don't know whether your pricing will work for a casual blogger, but the product is interesting. For bigger publishers, it's definitely easier to justify the expense, especially if you can show some ROI on increasing ad revenues because of better retention.

AlexTr0y 3y ago
I think it is super easy to justify expense for something like this for anyone doing text-based content marketing through blogs or articles.
vittor1o 3y ago
Good idea on communicating ROI this way. I have not though about it. As for casual bloggers, there is a "free" version. But message me through the chat on Linkz.ai, I'll do a special plan for casual HN bloggers :)

sm1th_sm1th 3y ago

There was another HN thread today about Google Scholar PDF Reader - they introduced a citations preview in a popup. Question. Can Linkz.ai be integrated into the PDF-viewer?

vittor1o 3y ago
Yes, but it depends. The PDF-viewer should have <a href> HTML markup to which link preview popups can attach. I know people have integrated Linkz.ai into the PDF.JS open source lib.