I looked through the examples on stipple.com and didn't see anything that I thought was exciting. It seemed that those with blogs and facebook pages might lard an image with references to their services or products - something they might find interesting - but nothing that made the buyer/client's experience any better, simpler or more useful.
I thought of the stuff the Daily Mail does on its web site where they put rollovers over images with links to where you can buy the clothes (should that sort of thing interest you). I think advertisers are looking for new ways to flog their stuff, but some are destined to be short lived when they're more annoying than useful. I found those images with lots of overlapping popups really clumsy to navigate (assuming I was interested in doing so).
What is really puzzling about the Getty link is that the licenses for editorial images exclude use for commercial purposes. Isn't sticking a stipple placed link into an editorial image using the image for commercial purposes?