SAN FRANCISCO — The idea of clicking on a sweater your favorite TV character is wearing has long been held out as a promised land of interactivity.

Now, the two-year-old interactive video startup ClikThrough said its technology is enticing Web users to watch videos longer by giving that very option: The average user clicks at least four times in a video that has ClikThrough-enabled with hotspotting technology, the company told Beet.TV. 

I met ClikThrough CEO Abe McCallum at the Brightcove Alliance Meetup last night  at the Thirsty Bear restaurant. He spoke about his two-year-old company's business model and customers. 

ClikThrough is working with a number of Sony properties, including its music division. In that capacity, ClikThrough uses a hotspotting tool to make different portions of a music video clickable. Some of the artists working with ClikThrough include Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne, and Eminem.

The company is privately funded and landed $1 million in additional financing earlier this summer from a number of music business investors. ClikThrough makes money through professional services by coding the videos and their "hot spots" for client and by revenue sharing on ads. An additional revenue stream may come in data, McCallum said, because the company also tracks viewer engagement and interaction with videos. 

At the San Francisco event, Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire announced several new partners in the company's partner program, which now counts more than 200 companies that integrate with Brightcove's technology. ClikThrough is currently in talks with Brightcove about becoming a partner in the program.

Daisy Whitney, Senior Producer

By Daisy Whitney on    @daisywhitney