Blogging

StumbleUpon’s new link shortening site called Su.pr made its public (yet private) launch today. Similar to Bit.ly, it shortens URLs and lets users track where they end up, along with stats on who’s clicked on them. It also brings along StumbleUpon’s software-free toolbar which lets users hop to both recommended and random links.

However, the real appeal of Su.pr is that it gives each shortened URL the potential for greatness. URLs can be seeded not only to Twitter and Facebook, but also into StumbleUpon’s content pool where they can be discovered and promoted by its users. Just like Digg’s much loved and hated URL shortening service, this system brings the promise of a longtail from your link showing up as a related item. But in Su.pr’s case, the goal isn’t to get on the front page as much as it is to become a site that users are recommended to visit, or discover through organic ratings.

Su.pr lets you post links at a later date if you don't feel like shortening something right away. You can also track activity on links after you've shared them with the public.

(Credit: CNET)

Compared to Bit.ly, Su.pr’s stats tracking tools are a little more basic. It doesn’t grab things like metadata from the URL’s source site, or pick up all the places where the link has been re-posted. Although it shows you how many times your link has been re-tweeted on Twitter, and given a rated review on StumbleUpon. It also breaks down traffic sources into two sets of data. One is for the people who click on the link from outside of StumbleUpon. The other is for organic traffic from the site.

In my brief test of the service earlier today, all of my traffic came from outside sources. But if you’re a heavy StumbleUpon user with lots of friends on the service, this can be a good way to figure out where those clicks are coming from.

Su.pr has also got some really smart tools for publishers. The first is a way to publish shortened URLs at a later date and time. So say I have a story that’s going up in two hours. I can grab that URL before it’s live, shorten it, and set it to post to Twitter, Facebook, and StumbleUpon the second it goes live.

Soon it will also let publishers use the shortening service while maintaining domain branding. So instead of using su.pr/XXX, I could set it up to use cnet.com/XXX. It will also be able to be inserted into your site’s code, so that each URL you link to is automatically shortened. It does this while maintaining a special domain re-direct that allows search engines to pick up on those source links, even though they’ve been shortened.

When released, these extra features will set Su.pr apart from the rest of the pack. In the meantime, it’s a pretty snappy URL shortener that, like the DiggBar, makes it easy to share links with what is potentially a very large audience with little effort.

If you’re interested in using Su.pr ahead of when it opens up to everyone, you can sign up using the invite code suprww. There are only 250, so get ‘em while they’re hot.

Read the original:
StumbleUpon’s URL shortener Su.pr impresses [invites]

Amid stormy economic seas, auction giant eBay has thrown overboard StumbleUpon, the recommendation and “discovery” start-up that it purchased in 2007 for approximately $75 million.

Replacing corny nautical puns with corny alcohol puns, this looks like a symptom of the hangover that followed eBay’s acquisition binge during Web 2.0’s heyday. Even though many speculated that eBay would use StumbleUpon’s technology to power product recommendations, the two companies just didn’t find a fit–or a way to make a decent return. eBay’s acquisition habits have been more vocally criticized when it comes to Skype, the online telephony start-up that was acquired for $2.6 billion in 2005. It’s a well-received product, but never had an obvious niche within eBay and observers have long speculated it would do better on its own.

Financial terms of the StumbleUpon spinoff were not disclosed, but it appears that the company was sold back to the two founders, Garrett Camp (who will serve as CEO) and Geoff Smith, and investors Accel Partners, August Capital, and Ram Shriram of Sherpalo Ventures.

“We are grateful to eBay for its guidance. However, we realized there were few long-term synergies between the two businesses. It is best for us to part ways and focus on our respective strengths,” Camp said in a statement. “This change makes it possible for StumbleUpon to continue to innovate and focus on becoming the Web’s largest recommendation service.”

Last fall, a rumor spread that eBay had hired investment bank Deutsche Bank to help find a buyer for StumbleUpon.

The big question now: Will it do the same with Skype?

More:
Anchors aweigh: eBay casts off StumbleUpon

Digg’s release of a pervasive, software-free toolbar last week brought with it a sweet little surprise: the capability to jump to a random site or story that was recommended by other Digg users. For a site that’s run entirely by its community, this puts the power of browsing in the hands of an algorithm that does the deciding for you. Digg wasn’t the first site to do this, though. So what are some other tools that let you randomly explore the Web? I’ve put together a few of my favorites below.

StumbleUpon: Calling StumbleUpon just a random site generator may not be fair. While it does a great job of taking you to random sites, most of its links have been vetted by a large user base of people who go through and weed out some of the bad or outdated stuff. It’s also got a built-in recommendation engine that will tune its “stumbles” to your tastes as you give sites a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.

In addition to being able to use the site with a special toolbar that remains no matter what site you’re on, you can get a similar experience right from StumbleUpon’s site, which brings with it a software-free toolbar. You can also access StumbleUpon for sites, and video on various gaming consoles, including the Nintendo Wii, for which StumbleUpon coded a special version of the site to work with the Wii’s remote and your living room’s TV set.

Mangle: Next to StumbleUpon, Mangle is one of the oldest sites on this list, having launched in early 2002. While it’s not much to look at, it does a good job of letting you randomly hop to big sites, personal pages, images, and even maps. You can access all these verticals either through bookmarks, or by installing Mangle’s browser toolbar, which also throws in the option to show random sites that match up with keywords you’ve entered. Worth noting, however, is that the toolbar hasn’t been updated in a while, so it won’t work with the latest version of Firefox.

Delicious Randomizer: Delicious may be all about organization (which some people take to an obsessive compulsive level), but it’s also got a wild side. It has a random links feature that will take you to a link that’s either recently been created or bookmarked by another Delicious user. You can click on it again and again, and it will give you random results based on the pulse of the site. To do it, just save this link to your bookmarks toolbar or bookmarks list.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

DiggBar: Digg’s software-free toolbar has a large, orange random button, which as you might guess, takes you to a random page. Where Digg differs from some of the other services on this list though, is that all stories or sites it takes you to have been featured on the front page of Digg.com. This may keep you from finding some real undiscovered gems, but for the casual user you at least know you’re being taken to something worthy of a quick look.

Rolling the dice takes you to a new site based on topical sites you've visited recently.

(Credit: CNET)

Google Toolbar: Users with the Google Toolbar installed can add on a special random page button that goes to a random site recommended by Google based on your past browsing history. It looks at what you’ve been searching for, and pulls up 50 related links, which it cycles through at random whenever you click the button. You can also hop to one of its suggestions by choosing from a drop-down menu, although the first option is way more fun.

If you don’t feel like giving Google more of your browser than it already has, you can accomplish the same thing with this Firefox add-on, which also feeds from the same list.

Minthink: Minthink generates a random site to go to with the press of a button. What’s nice about this one compared to some of the rest is that if you’re accessing it from its standard site, you can preview what the URL is before you click on it. However, if you’re a Firefox user and feeling bold, there’s an extension, and a script for Ubiquity that will take you directly to the site without you knowing what it is first.

That Random Website: This one may not be well and truly random since it’s working off a database, but the folks behind it were smart enough to see the success of the Million Dollar Homepage and go for something similar by selling off slots at $1 a pop (which goes to charity). Every time you visit it or hit the refresh button in the browser it’ll take you somewhere new, along with the option to hop back to That Random Website’s homepage which makes it feel like a Web ring of yore.

Random Website: (not to be confused with That Random Website) lets you click on a giant face to be hurtled towards a new site. You can also add any of your own URLs to its database, which will go out to other users after being approved by its creators. There’s no fancy toolbar, but you can save its bookmark, which will open up a random site in a new browser tab.

Web-O-Random is another service on that list that isn’t the prettiest, but it makes up for it with neat AJAX tricks. It will load up random pages in a frame on the bottom of the page with slick fades. It also has a carousel of alternate links if you want to control your destiny a bit more. Technology demo aside, I ran into some problems with it spitting out pages that either weren’t alive anymore, or weren’t in English, which may not be a problem if you’ve got Google Translate handy.

Any we missed? Leave them in the comments.

Nine tools that let you randomly browse the Web

The launch of the DiggBar on Thursday was big news. Not only for URL shortening services, but for the idea of one site bringing some of its features along for the ride, even when a user has left it to go somewhere else. The idea is not new though, some services have been doing it for years. We’ve put together a list of some of the big sites that do it, and why it matters.

Google/Ask/Yahoo/Live Image Search

Searching for images on Yahoo keeps the search UI with you, and gives you a quick way back.

(Credit: CNET )

Searching for images on Google, Ask, Live, and Yahoo all bring along a framed toolbar, or a special framed bar that segments the content. When you click on an image from the results on any of these engines it keeps a little frame on the top of the page that gives you copyright and size information, along with a link to the full-quality version. More importantly though, it lets users start another search or simply hop back to the results page.

Why it’s important: All routes go back to the search results–and more importantly, back to the ads that were on the page. If the company can get you to start another search, that’s another ad impression. Also, from a user’s point of view, it’s comforting to have a quick breadcrumb trail to get yourself out of there if it’s a page you didn’t want to end up on, especially if it’s coded to keep your back button from letting you leave the page.

Facebook

Facebook's sneaky link bar is not as advanced as some of the others on this list, but lets you comment and share on outgoing links from the popular social network.

(Credit: CNET)

Facebook has had a link sharing feature since late 2006. Only recently, however did shared links come with a navigation bar that comes with the users when they click off-site links. The bar includes who posted the item (in case you’re passing along something one of your friends originally shared), as well as the option to add your own comment, or re-share it to your news feed or to other Facebook buddies.

Why it’s important: Like what the search engines do for images, Facebook is doing for any link its users share. It simply adds some of Facebook’s features like commenting and re-sharing, right on top of the site. It’s a much bigger deal for Facebook users though, since for anything that needs a lot of real estate, they can check it out in its original location (read: out of Facebook’s limited-size news feed), all without feeling like they’ve left the site.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon's software-free toolbar comes with you from site to site, and adapts to your browsing style as you surf.

(Credit: CNET)

StumbleUpon released a software-free version of its toolbar back in September. It ditched the need for a software-based browser toolbar (which StumbleUpon pioneered) in place of a small frame that loads on top of the Web site you’re on. Provided is a way to rate the site you’re on from one to five stars, as well as the option to vote whether you liked it. Most importantly though, it continued to include the “Stumble!” button that takes users to new sites, and makes that random decision based on your ratings.

Why it’s important: For StumbleUpon this was an easy way to get people in the door without a big commitment. Previously users were able to casually browse the sites that certified members had deemed click-worthy, but there was close to zero interaction. With this new system you can actually vote, and randomly visit sites, and without having to register or download anything. Better yet, the toolbar came along with the links to sites, meaning users could discover it from the links that were shared by friends.

Digg

The DiggBar, which launched on Thursday, brings many of Digg's social features with you from site to site.

(Credit: CNET)

The DiggBar, in case you missed it, is Digg’s big new initiative to both make it easier to share links to stories on the service, as well as hop back to Digg when you’re done reading. Any link you see on the front page of Digg now brings the DiggBar with it, a small toolbar that sits atop whatever page you’re on, and gives users the option to read other items from the same source, share it with friends, and interact with others in the Digg community. It also automatically shortens the URL to make it easier to share in IM conversations and microblogging services like Twitter.

Why it’s important: Beyond being a content portal Digg is now a service provider in giving people a relatively simple way to shorten their URLs and share them with friends. It also adds a plug for Digg by including the option to submit that story to the service with very little user effort. Oh yeah, there are also advertisements when viewing user comments, and related stories by topic or source, which will deliver even more ad impressions to the social news site.

Who’s next?

function pollPop() {

pollwin=window.open(”,’pollwin’,'width=400,height=270,status=no,scrollbars=no,resizable=yes,toolbar=no’);

document.forms["myForm"].submit();

}

Lots of sites could be adding something similar to their own outgoing links. Just like it does for images, Google could add this to basic Web search results. You could even see it crop up from Web publishers that want to bring people back to a story if they’ve clicked on an outgoing link. The only problem lies in making sure you’re not alienating users, or making them detest the tacked-on browser frame like a pop-up window.

What do you think of the software-free toolbar trend?

See the original post here:
7 sites that use software-free toolbars (and why it matters)

The launch of the DiggBar on Thursday was big news. Not only for URL-shortening services, but for the idea of one site bringing some of its features along for the ride, even when a user has left it to go somewhere else.

The idea is not new, though; some services have been doing it for years. We’ve put together a list of some of the big sites that do it, and why it matters.

Google/Ask/Yahoo/Live Image Search

Searching for images on Yahoo keeps the search UI with you, and gives you a quick way back.

(Credit: CNET )

Searching for images on Google, Ask, Live, and Yahoo all bring along a framed toolbar, or a special framed bar that segments the content. When you click on an image from the results on any of these engines it keeps a little frame on the top of the page that gives you copyright and size information, along with a link to the full-quality version. More importantly though, it lets users start another search or simply hop back to the results page.

Why it’s important: All routes go back to the search results–and more importantly, back to the ads that were on the page. If the company can get you to start another search, that’s another ad impression. Also, from a user’s point of view, it’s comforting to have a quick breadcrumb trail to get yourself out of there if it’s a page you didn’t want to end up on, especially if it’s coded to keep your back button from letting you leave the page.

Facebook

Facebook's sneaky link bar is not as advanced as some of the others on this list, but lets you comment and share on outgoing links from the popular social network.

(Credit: CNET)

Facebook has had a link sharing feature since late 2006. Only recently, however did shared links come with a navigation bar that comes with the users when they click off-site links. The bar includes who posted the item (in case you’re passing along something one of your friends originally shared), as well as the option to add your own comment, or re-share it to your news feed or to other Facebook buddies.

Why it’s important: Like what the search engines do for images, Facebook is doing for any link its users share. It simply adds some of Facebook’s features like commenting and re-sharing, right on top of the site. It’s a much bigger deal for Facebook users though, since for anything that needs a lot of real estate, they can check it out in its original location (read: out of Facebook’s limited-size news feed), all without feeling like they’ve left the site.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon's software-free toolbar comes with you from site to site, and adapts to your browsing style as you surf.

(Credit: CNET)

StumbleUpon released a software-free version of its toolbar back in September. It ditched the need for a software-based browser toolbar (which StumbleUpon pioneered) in place of a small frame that loads on top of the Web site you’re on. Provided is a way to rate the site you’re on from one to five stars, as well as the option to vote whether you liked it. Most importantly though, it continued to include the “Stumble!” button that takes users to new sites, and makes that random decision based on your ratings.

Why it’s important: For StumbleUpon this was an easy way to get people in the door without a big commitment. Previously users were able to casually browse the sites that certified members had deemed click-worthy, but there was close to zero interaction. With this new system you can actually vote, and randomly visit sites, and without having to register or download anything. Better yet, the toolbar came along with the links to sites, meaning users could discover it from the links that were shared by friends.

Digg

The DiggBar, which launched on Thursday, brings many of Digg's social features with you from site to site.

(Credit: CNET)

The DiggBar, in case you missed it, is Digg’s big new initiative to both make it easier to share links to stories on the service, as well as hop back to Digg when you’re done reading. Any link you see on the front page of Digg now brings the DiggBar with it, a small toolbar that sits atop whatever page you’re on, and gives users the option to read other items from the same source, share it with friends, and interact with others in the Digg community. It also automatically shortens the URL to make it easier to share in IM conversations and microblogging services like Twitter.

Why it’s important: Beyond being a content portal Digg is now a service provider in giving people a relatively simple way to shorten their URLs and share them with friends. It also adds a plug for Digg by including the option to submit that story to the service with very little user effort. Oh yeah, there are also advertisements when viewing user comments, and related stories by topic or source, which will deliver even more ad impressions to the social news site.

Who’s next?

function pollPop() {

pollwin=window.open(”,’pollwin’,'width=400,height=270,status=no,scrollbars=no,resizable=yes,toolbar=no’);

document.forms["myForm"].submit();

}

Lots of sites could be adding something similar to their own outgoing links. Just like it does for images, Google could add this to basic Web search results. You could even see it crop up from Web publishers that want to bring people back to a story if they’ve clicked on an outgoing link. The only problem lies in making sure you’re not alienating users, or making them detest the tacked-on browser frame like a pop-up window.

What do you think of the software-free toolbar trend?

Credit:
7 sites using software-free toolbars (and why it matters)