Create rich media experiences using timed comments

In the last weeks we got pretty excited about the idea of using timed comments to create and script rich media experiences. Imagine being able to trigger all kinds of visualizations & interactions for a timed comment while playing a track.

Timed Comments with Media

We’ve already built a few experiments around this concept:

  • The onTimedComments hack is a simple example showing off the full power of this idea. It takes any kind of link in the comments and translates it into a rich media embed using Embed.ly.
  • WaveRaid lets you literally play a track. Collect all the timed comments using the play button as your space ship.
  • With StoryWheel you can create a slideshow from your Instagram pictures and record your story around them. It’s using the timed comments to store where each picture has to show up. Alex & Eric used this to tell the story of SoundCloud.

With the latest version of our Javascript SDK we’ve made it very simple for everyone to use this technique using the new ontimedcomments event. Here is a basic example (press play to try it):

We are looking forward to all the innovative apps & hacks you can come up with using this! As always, we are happy to hear your ideas & thoughts about this.