Most popular hashtags on Twitter

Using hashtags in your Tweets obviously increases the visibility of your message. They also allow you to start or join conversations. Discover in this article the list of most popular hashtags, their classification in an interactive mind map and a free tool to explore them If you are active on Twitter or if you plan to be soon, you may find helpful to have a look at the most popular hashtags you could insert in your messages. Twitter hashtags marks keywords or topics in Tweets. They are composed of a single word or phrase beginning with a "#" and with no spaces or punctuation. They were originally created by Twitter users and have become a so powerful and natural way to participate in global conversations that even Facebook rolled-out the system.

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Tour de France 2012 - Interactive Mind Map

The Tour the France 2012 started on June 30th, from Liège in Belgium. Discover a new interactive map (of France) and creative mind maps detailing the characteristics of the stages. It combines the drawing flexibility of iMindMap software and the power of online tagging with ThingLink tool.

I'm living in the Province Liège (Belgium) which launches the 2012 Tour de France. It is with unfeigned delight and pride that, following up the success of 2004, the Province once again hosts the grand start of the Tour.

The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual times to finish each stage are aggregated to determine the overall winner at the end of the race. The course changes every year, but the race has always finished in Paris, along the Champs-Élysées (Wikipedia).

Running from Saturday June 30th to Sunday July 22th 2012, the 99th Tour de France will be made up of 1 prologue and 20 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,497 kilometres.

This important event taking place in my region is a new opportunity for me to use iMindMap and ThingLink tools in order to design an interactive map, and detailed mind maps for stages. Following Patrick Zimbardo's idea who used a mind map for giving results about EURO2012 football matches (see Patrick's mind map), I plan to update each mind map with the results of the day, during the time of the Tour.

Tour de France 2012 - Stage - Mind Map Overview with iMindMap

You can download the iMindMap file on Biggerplate plateform.

I truly believe that creative mind maps provide new ways of communicating useful information, whether it is for giving the big picture or going into the details. The stage mind map will inform you about the date, the distance, the profile (mountain passes, hills, intermediate sprint), the start and finish towns and once known, the 3 first cyclists crossing the finish line. I also invite you to read Am I drawing true mind maps? where you will find another creative mind map describing the route and the profile of a specific stage.

Further to the recent success of the first interactive mind map with ThingLink, I wanted to use once again this fantastic image tagging tool. I used iMindMap, the mind map tool from ThinkBuzan, to re-create the entire route of the Tour de France 2012. The software is extremely flexible and I've been able to draw the route with a true mind map (which you can eventually discover step by step with the presentation mode). I have already used the technique for drawing the timeline or the dot-to-dot game. On top of the image, I placed a ThingLink tag for each stage of the race. If you move your mouse over the route of a stage, you will expand the corresponding mind maps, which will give you the characteristics. Along the tour, the interactive image will also give you access to the main standings (individual, points and climber) and to the official website (www.letour.fr)

Tour de France 2012 - Route - Interactive Mind Map with Thinglink

Click here if you want to access a larger version of the interactive map.

I hope you will enjoy this new creative mind map and its interactivity. Whether you like sport or not, the objective of this article is essentially to show the power of iMindMap combined with ThingLink in order to communicate information in an attractive and efficient way.


Do not hesitate to share your own experiences with the tools. You are also welcome to ask questions about the technique, start discussions about the topic, give some feedback or contact me via the different channels for your requests or any additional information.

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Interactive mind map with ThingLink

Innovation can be as simple as combining two tools such as iMindMap and ThingLink which were not initially designed to work together. Discover how to turn your mind maps (or any other image) into attractive, interactive and sharable online content using rich media tags from ThingLink. I was looking for an easy way to embed sound and video in my exported mind maps and make them more interactive on the web. My preferred mind mapping software has not feature this option (yet). But recently, I discovered a very simple tool to do it on top, just in a few clicks. It's straight forward, it is called ThingLink and I wanted to share it with you. Let me explain you how to turn your mind maps (or any other image) into attractive, interactive and shareable online content using rich media tags.

Think outside the box

People are often asking me how many different tools I’m using to draw my creative mind maps and how much difficult it is. I might surprise you with my answer but actually I’m using only a few and it is easier than it seems. Indeed, innovation can be as simple as considering two tools such as iMindMap and ThingLink which were not initially designed to work together but once combined, offer you a new dimension to explore and create. I have already addressed this subject in my previous posts  Beyond limits of software and Creative mind maps are also possible with computers. Most of the time the solution is not in one application. We are living in an open world. Open your mind, be curious and go outside the box which is imposed by your software. (R-)Evolution is somewhere there.

About the tagging tool
ThingLink is a Finnish-American provider of in-image interaction tools. It’s a tool that makes it easy to add clickable tags to any image on the web and share them on social networks. When linked with a URL to one of the rich media enabled sites, a tag (bubble) is created for the related content. These tags will then be revealed every time a viewer scrolls their mouse over the uploaded image.

ThingLink technology changes how people engage with photos by transforming them from a static image, into a navigational surface for exploring rich, relevant content that enhances the viewer’s knowledge and experience. It's free for the first 50 images you tag.

ThingLink’s exclusive Rich Media Tags feature popular media players, apps and websites -- from YouTube, Vimeo, TED, SoundCloud, Google Maps, Spotify, FlickR, Instagram, TwitPic, Imgur, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon, eBay, BestBuy, iTunes, Etsy, Mailchimp, ThrillCall, Eventbrite and FanBridge (visit ThingLink blog for most recent information and updates). Marketers can also create links inside images to anywhere on the Internet and build custom, branded tags using ThingLink’s smart app developer tools. ThingLink tag supports the Open Graph API, enabling publishers of newspapers, magazines and blogs to feature content as rich media tags on interactive images. For web sites using Open Graph, ThingLink Smart Tags automatically convey a story post with a post title, image and source. 

Interact with the mind map
Mouse over the picture here below and discover an interesting way of interacting with a mind map. You will find various pieces of content I selected from my personal library and from some of my peers. Who knows? You might have been tagged! Check it and share it.

Interactive mind map with ThingLink

Click here if you want to access a larger version of the interactive map.

Add tags in a few clicks

Here are very simple steps you can use to turn your mind map into an interactive one:

1. Create an image file of your mind map;
2. Identify and collect the URLs of the different rich media enabled sites you want to embed (all URLs are supported but not all will reveal a rich media tag);
3. Sign up for ThingLink. It's free!
4. Upload your mind map image (from your drive, Facebook, FlickR or from a URL on the web);
5. Edit your tags. It is as simple as clicking the image at the exact place where you want the tag to appear and paste the associated URL. You can also add a description that will appear inside the bubble;
6. Save your tagged image on your dashboard;
7. Share your image with your network. You can also track the traffic it generates;

If you need more information about the type of tags that are supported, there is a presentation about Rich Media Tags on SlideShare or this video on Youtube. The support section on ThingLink website is also providing very good information and explanations.
I hope I could unlock some creativity blockers you might face. I'm sure you are now ready to achieve new things with your mind maps and bring them to a different level. Would you have examples you want to share, do not hesitate to post here below. Your feedback is appreciated. It's a very important support for going further and give you more articles like this one.

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