Twitter has changed the way third parties, such as Adjix, interface with their system. This change begins today as Twitter will limit the rate at which third parties can authenticate a user with their Twitter username and password. Throughout the rest of the month, Twitter will continue to throttle the access rate and then completely eliminate username and password authentications on August 31.
The reason for this change is so that Twitter users no longer need to give out their Twitter username and password to third party websites.
The Future
The new method that will replace username and password authentications is called OAuth and this change has been jokingly referred to as the "Oauthcalypse" since some Twitter websites and applications will, undoubtedly, fail to make the change and get left behind.
Instead of giving out a Twitter username and password, users will click on a button which will take the user from the third party website to the Twitter website where they can authorize the third party (i.e. Adjix) to post to Twitter on their behalf. A big advantage of this technique is that a Twitter user can revoke access from a third party by logging into their Twitter account:
(Settings -> Connections -> Revoke Access). In the past, revoking access meant that a user would have to change their Twitter password and then update all of their other Twitter clients, such as TweetDeck, twitpic, etc. with the new password.
Changes for Adjix Linkers
Adjix has deployed the new changes which affects Adjix Linkers who use the Adjix2Twitter bookemarklet for sending out tweets.
To update your Adjix account, simply log into your Adjix Linker account, click Edit Profile, and then click on the Twitter button. Twitter will display a page to confirm that you want to connect your Adjix account with your Twitter account. Just as before, you can configure Adjix to tweet out to one or two of your Twitter accounts.
Don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Custom Domain Name Redirect
We've rolled out a new feature for people who use Adjix with their own domain name. Now, you can have the root of your domain redirect to your own website instead of Adjix.
To enable this feature simply log into your Adjix Linker account and click on Edit Profile. There, you'll see a new option:
Redirect personal domain root to:
Simply enter the destination landing page and whenever someone enters the root of your link URL we'll automatically redirect them.
This feature should have been obvious, but we didn't implement it until Dave Winer asked it.
For example, Dave's Adjix links look like: http://r2.ly/w2g6
Now, the root of his links (http://r2.ly) automatically redirect, through Adjix, to http://newsriver.org/river2
To enable this feature simply log into your Adjix Linker account and click on Edit Profile. There, you'll see a new option:
Redirect personal domain root to:
Simply enter the destination landing page and whenever someone enters the root of your link URL we'll automatically redirect them.
This feature should have been obvious, but we didn't implement it until Dave Winer asked it.
For example, Dave's Adjix links look like: http://r2.ly/w2g6
Now, the root of his links (http://r2.ly) automatically redirect, through Adjix, to http://newsriver.org/river2
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Own Your Links: Adjix Link Bucket Backup
Backstory: Zi.ma & Tr.im
This year, two URL shorteners have closed up operations with some spectacular publicity. Earlier this year, the owner of Zi.ma was sentenced to three years in prison and zi.ma links stopped working. Additionally, over the past 10 days, TechCrunch ran many stories about Tr.im closing down.
Community Solutions
In response to Tr.im's news, Gnip.com announced 301Works.org which is an independent URL mapping directory service. Adjix has joined 301Works in our efforts to battle broken links, also known as link rot.
Independently, Adjix deployed a new feature, this past week, to help stop link rot. We don't have an official name for this feature yet, but we currently refer to it as the Adjix Link Bucket Backup.
Link Ownership and Branding
This new Adjix feature now gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility. For starters, you can use your own domain name, in the link, in place of adjix.com or ad.vu. If you name your S3 bucket go.example.com then your links can look like http://go.example.com/1234.
Peer Review
We're proud to say that our technique has been peer reviewed by at least one official member of the Digirati, Dave Winer, who was recently proclaimed as "the biggest innovator of the web" by another Digirati member, John C. Dvorak.
Process
The Adjix Link Bucket Backup process is simple: When you shorten a link with Adjix, we will save a working copy of the link to your Amazon S3 bucket.
Cost?
Adjix charges nothing for this service. However, your monthly storage and bandwidth charges from Amazon might be about $0.10/month. Yes, Amazon will really bill you as little as a nickel or a dime each month.
How To Do It?
1. Create an Amazon S3 bucket and name it with your sub-domain (i.e. go.example.com).
2. Share your bucket with Adjix so we can save a copy of each link that you create with us. Step-by-step instructions for doing this are here: http://adjix.com/tt3b
3. Log into your Adjix account and click Edit Profile. At the bottom, just enter the name of your bucket.
4. Optional: If you want to use your domain's root name (i.e. example.com) instead of a sub-domain (i.e. go.example.com) then you'll have to use your registrar's domain name forwarding option (see paragraph entitled Domain Name Forwarding) and forward your domain to http://s3.amazonaws.com. The reason for this is that DNS doesn't not allow a domain's root to point to a CNAME - it must be an A Record.
Options
You have two options for hosting your links. You can choose to point your sub-domain's CNAME to partner.adjix.com and Adjix will track stats for you. Or, you can set your sub-domain's CNAME to http://s3.amazonaws.com and the links will be served up directly from your S3 bucket.
Here are four, live, examples. I encourage you to curl and dig them (UNIX commands).
1. http://adjix.com/tt3b
Basic, shortened, Adjix link.
Traffic stats collected by Adjix.
2. http://go.usna93.com/tt3b
Shortened link with CNAME for go.joemoreno.com pointing to partner.adjix.com.
Traffic stats collected by Adjix.
3. http://links.joemoreno.com/tt3b
Shortened link with CNAME for links.joemoreno.com pointing to S3 bucket named links.joemoreno.com.s3.amazonaws.com.
Traffic stats logged by S3 bucket logging.
4. http://urlpuppy.com/tt3b
Shortened link with registrar domain name forwarding to http://s3.amazonaws.com.
Traffic stats logged by S3 bucket logging.
Your links are portable and any URL shortening service could serve up your redirects since your bucket is now the data store. In other words, 301 redirects are possible since any third party can read the links from your bucket, parse out the meta-refresh URL, tally the stats, and redirect the client's browser to the destination URL. While this may sound time consuming, this process only needs to be done once so the link can be copied to the third party's database.
No Worries
If Adjix closes up shop (which we do not intend to!), your links live on inside your bucket and they continue to work as they redirect people to their destination.
Link Portability
Since you now own your links, you'll have the freedom to move from one URL shortener to another, provided that they support this simple technique. Additionally, your users won't even be aware of which link shortening service you're using since your shortened links will be branded with your own domain name.
Stats Road Map When Serving Links Directly From Your Bucket
You can turn on your S3 bucket logging to track raw stats if you choose to serve up your links directly from your S3 bucket instead of Adjix. Also, we're researching how effective it will be to include your Google Analytics (Urchin) code in the link when we store it in your S3 bucket. If this option works as anticipated then you'll have full access to your link's stats in Google Analytics.
Feedback welcomed!
Cheers,
Joe Moreno
President
Adjix
This year, two URL shorteners have closed up operations with some spectacular publicity. Earlier this year, the owner of Zi.ma was sentenced to three years in prison and zi.ma links stopped working. Additionally, over the past 10 days, TechCrunch ran many stories about Tr.im closing down.
Community Solutions
In response to Tr.im's news, Gnip.com announced 301Works.org which is an independent URL mapping directory service. Adjix has joined 301Works in our efforts to battle broken links, also known as link rot.
Independently, Adjix deployed a new feature, this past week, to help stop link rot. We don't have an official name for this feature yet, but we currently refer to it as the Adjix Link Bucket Backup.
Link Ownership and Branding
This new Adjix feature now gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility. For starters, you can use your own domain name, in the link, in place of adjix.com or ad.vu. If you name your S3 bucket go.example.com then your links can look like http://go.example.com/1234.
Peer Review
We're proud to say that our technique has been peer reviewed by at least one official member of the Digirati, Dave Winer, who was recently proclaimed as "the biggest innovator of the web" by another Digirati member, John C. Dvorak.
Process
The Adjix Link Bucket Backup process is simple: When you shorten a link with Adjix, we will save a working copy of the link to your Amazon S3 bucket.
Cost?
Adjix charges nothing for this service. However, your monthly storage and bandwidth charges from Amazon might be about $0.10/month. Yes, Amazon will really bill you as little as a nickel or a dime each month.
How To Do It?
1. Create an Amazon S3 bucket and name it with your sub-domain (i.e. go.example.com).
2. Share your bucket with Adjix so we can save a copy of each link that you create with us. Step-by-step instructions for doing this are here: http://adjix.com/tt3b
3. Log into your Adjix account and click Edit Profile. At the bottom, just enter the name of your bucket.
4. Optional: If you want to use your domain's root name (i.e. example.com) instead of a sub-domain (i.e. go.example.com) then you'll have to use your registrar's domain name forwarding option (see paragraph entitled Domain Name Forwarding) and forward your domain to http://s3.amazonaws.com. The reason for this is that DNS doesn't not allow a domain's root to point to a CNAME - it must be an A Record.
Options
You have two options for hosting your links. You can choose to point your sub-domain's CNAME to partner.adjix.com and Adjix will track stats for you. Or, you can set your sub-domain's CNAME to http://s3.amazonaws.com and the links will be served up directly from your S3 bucket.
Here are four, live, examples. I encourage you to curl and dig them (UNIX commands).
1. http://adjix.com/tt3b
Basic, shortened, Adjix link.
Traffic stats collected by Adjix.
2. http://go.usna93.com/tt3b
Shortened link with CNAME for go.joemoreno.com pointing to partner.adjix.com.
Traffic stats collected by Adjix.
3. http://links.joemoreno.com/tt3b
Shortened link with CNAME for links.joemoreno.com pointing to S3 bucket named links.joemoreno.com.s3.amazonaws.com.
Traffic stats logged by S3 bucket logging.
4. http://urlpuppy.com/tt3b
Shortened link with registrar domain name forwarding to http://s3.amazonaws.com.
Traffic stats logged by S3 bucket logging.
Your links are portable and any URL shortening service could serve up your redirects since your bucket is now the data store. In other words, 301 redirects are possible since any third party can read the links from your bucket, parse out the meta-refresh URL, tally the stats, and redirect the client's browser to the destination URL. While this may sound time consuming, this process only needs to be done once so the link can be copied to the third party's database.
No Worries
If Adjix closes up shop (which we do not intend to!), your links live on inside your bucket and they continue to work as they redirect people to their destination.
Link Portability
Since you now own your links, you'll have the freedom to move from one URL shortener to another, provided that they support this simple technique. Additionally, your users won't even be aware of which link shortening service you're using since your shortened links will be branded with your own domain name.
Stats Road Map When Serving Links Directly From Your Bucket
You can turn on your S3 bucket logging to track raw stats if you choose to serve up your links directly from your S3 bucket instead of Adjix. Also, we're researching how effective it will be to include your Google Analytics (Urchin) code in the link when we store it in your S3 bucket. If this option works as anticipated then you'll have full access to your link's stats in Google Analytics.
Feedback welcomed!
Cheers,
Joe Moreno
President
Adjix
Friday, August 14, 2009
Adjix Joins 301Works.org
Adjix has joined the 301Works.org project which was announced this morning.301Works is a project which ensures that shortened URLs can live on in case the company providing the link shrinking service goes out of business.
TechCrunch has been covering this topic all week - ever since tr.im announced their plans to turn off their link shrinking service:
http://adjix.com/iyxj
Mashable's coverage of this announcement made it to the front page of Digg:
http://adjix.com/jb8u
You can find the full press release here:
http://adjix.com/izhi
Monday, July 27, 2009
Our Apologies to @BreakingNews
Some of you may have seen the following tweet which unintentionally ended up in the @BreakingNews Twitter stream:
I have to take full responsibility for this mistake (including the typo in the tweet). This tweet was intended for my personal Twitter account which feeds into my Facebook account.
The Adjix system has several code paths that support features dedicated to special Twitter users such as @GuyKawasaki and @BreakingNews. While testing some new features, I received a text message for free food. Just show the cashier your cell phone coupon - no purchase necessary. At the restaurant, I noticed customer after customer showing their cell phones to the cashier. When I returned to work, I tweeted this out from a development machine which inserted the tweet into the @BreakingNews Twitter stream instead of mine.
I didn't even notice the error until about 15 minutes later when Michael van Poppel, the founder of @BreakingNews, contacted me. There wasn't much I could do except apologize.
Unfortunately, mistakes like this can't always be avoided especially when rolling out new features. I worked for Apple Inc. for more than eight years, including a stint at the Apple online store. Once, the online store accidentally released an upcoming feature set to the public too early - about a week before Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in 2003. During the WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs referred to this as "premature specification". Accidents happen.
Cheers,
Joe Moreno
President
Adjix
I have to take full responsibility for this mistake (including the typo in the tweet). This tweet was intended for my personal Twitter account which feeds into my Facebook account.
The Adjix system has several code paths that support features dedicated to special Twitter users such as @GuyKawasaki and @BreakingNews. While testing some new features, I received a text message for free food. Just show the cashier your cell phone coupon - no purchase necessary. At the restaurant, I noticed customer after customer showing their cell phones to the cashier. When I returned to work, I tweeted this out from a development machine which inserted the tweet into the @BreakingNews Twitter stream instead of mine.
I didn't even notice the error until about 15 minutes later when Michael van Poppel, the founder of @BreakingNews, contacted me. There wasn't much I could do except apologize.
Unfortunately, mistakes like this can't always be avoided especially when rolling out new features. I worked for Apple Inc. for more than eight years, including a stint at the Apple online store. Once, the online store accidentally released an upcoming feature set to the public too early - about a week before Apple's World Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) in 2003. During the WWDC keynote, Steve Jobs referred to this as "premature specification". Accidents happen.
Cheers,
Joe Moreno
President
Adjix
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Startup Story Radio Interview
Rob McNealy, over at Startup Story Radio, just posted a podcast interview that he conducted with me. It's about 40 minutes long and, in addition to interviewing me, Rob shares some of his experiences regarding social media and advertising:
http://adjix.com/ehkn
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Repeat Tweeting & Top 40
Adjix is pleased to announce two new features:
Repeat Tweeting which allows you to schedule the same tweet to be sent multiple times and Top 40 which allows you to view stats on your top 40 links without needing to login.
Repeat Tweeting
Repeat tweeting allows you to schedule a delayed tweet to be sent more than once, using our Adjix2Twitter Bookmarklet. For example, if you want to send out a tweet every day, for five days, reminding people to register for an event then you can easily do this by selecting the tweet to be sent once, every 24 hours, for five days.
Click to enlarge
To get your Adjix2Twitter Bookmarklet, just log into your Adjix Linker account and click on Bookmarklets. Here's a 40 second video demo of how it's done: http://adjix.com/g869
Top 40
With Top 40, you can now see how many people have clicked on your Adjix links without needing to login each time. You can also sort your links by either the time the link was created or by the number of hits it's received. We look back at your last 100 links and display the top 40.
Just bookmark one of the following links to see your stats (both links take you to the same place):
http://adjix.com/Top40
http://top40.adjix.com
You may have to authorize your computer, the first time you visit you Top 40, by logging into your Adjix account. But, once your computer is authorized, you're all set.
Repeat Tweeting which allows you to schedule the same tweet to be sent multiple times and Top 40 which allows you to view stats on your top 40 links without needing to login.
Repeat Tweeting
Repeat tweeting allows you to schedule a delayed tweet to be sent more than once, using our Adjix2Twitter Bookmarklet. For example, if you want to send out a tweet every day, for five days, reminding people to register for an event then you can easily do this by selecting the tweet to be sent once, every 24 hours, for five days.
Click to enlargeTo get your Adjix2Twitter Bookmarklet, just log into your Adjix Linker account and click on Bookmarklets. Here's a 40 second video demo of how it's done: http://adjix.com/g869
Top 40
With Top 40, you can now see how many people have clicked on your Adjix links without needing to login each time. You can also sort your links by either the time the link was created or by the number of hits it's received. We look back at your last 100 links and display the top 40.
Just bookmark one of the following links to see your stats (both links take you to the same place):
http://adjix.com/Top40
http://top40.adjix.com
You may have to authorize your computer, the first time you visit you Top 40, by logging into your Adjix account. But, once your computer is authorized, you're all set.
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