Can Apture Capture Reader Engagement?

I’m always looking for ways to add more interactivity to my blogs – useful methods of engaging readers and making content more relevant. While there are tons of products that promise to enhance content, very few deliver. Most just add clutter and detract from the focus of a blog or fansite. However I recently stumbled across an interesting product called Apture which might have to potential to be different.

What is Apture?

In their own words, Apture promises to enhance blog posts with interactive videos, images, Wikipedia, maps and more from 50+ sources without making readers leave the page.

Apture, which is available in the form of a plugin, uses pop-up windows to display external content chosen by the blogger. For example, if you run a music blog and you’re writing a post on your favorite musician or an upcoming gig, you might want to add Wikipedia links or YouTube videos to add depth to the post and further engage your readers. Normally you’d add a Wikipedia link which opens in an external window or tab, and you’d link to the YouTube video, resulting in the reader leaving your site if they want to investigate your recommended link (of course, you might embed the youtube video instead). Apture lets you present  your ‘extra content’ via a small pop-up window, or bubble, that overlays the page when the reader clicks or points their cursor over the link.

I’m currently experimenting with Apture over at www.fringebloggers.com and will be testing it out here on www.fansiteblogger.com shortly. I have to say that I’m impressed so far. The main appeal for me is that it’s extremely quick to install and use. I also believe that it has the potential to give me greater control over the way I present my information, whilst giving readers more relevant content to explore. I can’t see myself using Apture links in every post, far from it. But the odd post here and there might well be suited to my needs.

There are  a few negatives that I can think of – pop-ups carry a certain amount of stigma and although Apture’s pop-ups are controlled by the fansite owner/blogger and do not carry advertisements (yet), some readers might be instinctively put off by seeing a popup window emerge on top of a post. The fact that you have to sign up to Apture to make it work might also put a few bloggers off. (although that’s fairly common place practice with a lot of these tools – Lijit, Disqus, etc).

I’m going to continue experimenting with Apture for the next few weeks to see how useful it actually is and whether I find it relevant to my blogs in the long run. I’ll come back and do a more extensive review once I’ve add a good amount of time to test this baby out.

Apture Wordpress Plugin can be downloaded from the Apture website.

Tagged as: Apture, interactivity, Plugins, popups, tools, wikipedia, wordpress, youtube