Thoughts on Linking

We've encountered a small number of Internet purists who feel that people should not get paid to link to other websites under any circumstances. Obviously, this is exactly the opposite of how we, at Adjix, feel.

Content websites run ads (whether they're news sites or blogs) that generate revenues for the content providers. When a person forwards a link to a website, the person forwarding that link receives no benefit from the additional traffic he or she directed to the content provider. At Adjix, we're trying to help out the link forwarder and we call those people Linkers.

Options and More Options
Adjix has an option to not include any ads when Linkers use Adjix to shrink a link - but we still collect link click data for all Linkers. The data we collect is part of Adjix's "big payoff". Additionally, users have an option to remove an ad after clicking on an Adjix link. A couple months ago, an eject button icon was added in the upper right to remove Adjix ads and yesterday, to make it clearer, the eject button was replaced with a simple link that reads, "Remove ad".

Feedback
Many of our new features come from our users, either directly or via feedback.adjix.com. Like all startups, we have more features to implement than time in the day - but we're working as quickly as possible. Most recently, we've received excellent feedback on Adjix2Twitter and we'll be rolling out enhancements for this out soon.

We've noticed that a number of bloggers will constructively criticize Adjix in their blogs, but we may never hear of it; so don't forget to send us a link when you post your thoughts on Adjix. We'd love to hear your feedback, directly.

Our Favorite Tweets

We just had to brag about our favorite tweets on Twitter.

Plus, we have a little buzz going.

Twitter Comes to Adjix

Twitter Comes to Adjix
Adjix is now integrated with Twitter. With a single click of the Adjix2Twitter Bookmarklet you can create a short link for the web page you're viewing and add your comments to be posted to Twitter. Here's a 30 second video demonstrating this new feature:
http://adjix.com/78z4

Of course, these links are trackable like any other Adjix link. Just log into your Adjix Linker account and click on Bookmarklets to get your Adjix2Twitter Bookmarklet.

Use Adjix With Your Own Domain Name
Adjix2Twitter also supports your personal domain name. In other words, if you own a domain name, such as example.com, then you can configure go.example.com or links.example.com, etc., to work with your Adjix created links by updating your Linker profile. Details here:
http://adjix.com/ms83

Why is Adjix the Best Link Shortening and Tracking Site?
This page explains it best:
http://adjix.com/5wd2

Cheers,
Joe

Referral Based Tracking

We've just added referral based tracking to Adjix. When you publish your Adjix link to different places on the web (Twitter, blog, website, discussion forum, etc.) you'll know where a person was when they clicked on your link.

In technical terms, this is known as the "referrer". In other words, let's say you post the link http://adjix.com/h4hr to both your blog and on Twitter. Each time someone clicks on it, you'll know if they were viewing your link on your blog or Twitter.

Google AdWords
Here at Adjix, we've found this feature extremely helpful when used in conjunction with Google AdWords. We take our landing page, that we use in AdWords, and run it through Adjix to get an Adjix URL which we paste into Google AdWords. Now, whenever someone clicks on our Google AdWords ad, we know exactly where Google was running our ad. Using this, we can refine which of Google's third party ad partners generate the most clicks. Also, since we collect the "clicker's" IP address we can confirm that our ads targeting the U.S. are only being run in the U.S.

Additionally, Google AdWords lags a couple hours between receiving an AdWords click and reporting it. But, with Adjix, you know instantly when your AdWords ad was clicked.

We've actually been collecting referral information for Adjix ad-free redirects for a while, so you'll see details in your Link Stats going back several weeks. We've just begun collecting the referrer data for Adjix ad links, so, newly created links, as of this week, will now have this feature.

When the Referer is "None" this usually means that the person either typed the Adjix link directly into their web browser or they clicked on it inside an e-mail.

We believe this feature along with last week's Bookmarklets announcement make Adjix a very appealing solution.

Please let us know what you think of the referral data.

Cheers,
Joe

One-Click Link Shrink

Bookmarklets
Today, we introduced Bookmarklets which let Linkers shrink URLs (web links) in a single click directly from their web browser.

Linkers no longer need to visit adjix.com in order to copy and paste links to shrink them. Now, it's as simple as a single click and the shorten link is automatically pasted into your clipboard. Each Bookmarklet is customized for each Linker.

You'll find your custom Bookmarklets under the main menu once you log into your Linker account. They work with Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari on Windows, Mac OS X, and the iPhone.

We've posted several video tutorials to demonstrate the power and convenience of Bookmarklets (Requires QuickTime - if you have iTunes installed then you have QuickTime):

1. Create your personal Bookmarklets video

2. One-Click Bookmarklets in action video

3. The Two-Click Bookmarklet in action video



Time Zones
 Also, with today's release, we're happy to introduce time zone support. Now each Linker and Advertiser can edit their profile and set their time zone to their local time.

With the Adjix Bookmarklets, link shrinking has never been easier.

Cheers,
Joe Moreno, President
Tel. 760.444.4721

Amazon downtime and Adjix

See how Amazon's downtime can affect Adjix link creation:
http://adjix.com/fpx4

Update (Oct 9): Regardless of Amazon downtime, Adjix links now go live instantaneously.

Adjix Link Clicks (10,000+)

Here's a small sample of link clicks from a random Adjix Linker who created two links. For every one of the 28,000 clicks, below, Adjix has recorded detailed link data.

Click to enlarge image

Here's a sample of the detailed link data

(IP addresses have been changed for privacy reasons).

Click to enlarge image

Whether Adjix Linkers create links that only get a few clicks or thousands, they all love the data that we collect on their links. We're constantly looking for ways to improve Adjix – please don't hesitate to send us your feedback.

Adjix Interview by ActionsTalk

ActionsTalk #10 - Adjix from ActionsTalk on Vimeo.

Mashable Coverage

Mashable, a social networking news blog with over 5 million monthly page views, covered Adjix this week with a great review.

Read about it here.

Adjix E-mail Update

The following update was sent to our Adjix customers:

Hello Adjix-ers,

* Fortnight *
Today marks our two week anniversary since the launch of Adjix. We've gained a surprising amount of attention both in the U.S. and globally. Please drop by the Adjix blog to see the details.

* New Features *
Since our launch we've fixed some bugs and introduced some new features...

* Ad-Free Links *
The best known new feature we've introduced are ad-free links. You can now create an ad-free Adjix link that still captures key link data such as how many times was a link clicked?, who clicked on it?, and when? In the very near future, we'll have even more data for you.

* Next Update *
In our next update, we'll tell you how we've tied in Adjix links with Google AdWords to capture some interesting data.

* Unsubscribe *
To unsubscribe to any future e-mail updates, simply reply to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in either the subject line or the body of the message.

Sincerely,
Joe Moreno
President
joe.moreno+news@adjix.com
+1.760.444.4721

Ad-free Links Are Here!

The press and the blogosphere have been buzzing about Adjix. People aren't sure what to make of us, yet, and they're wondering what direction we're headed.

We've heard from some bloggers who love the data that we collect on their links but would sometimes prefer to do without the ads.

We listened and learned. This past weekend we implemented an ad-free link option on Adjix. Although Linkers don't generate any revenue when creating ad-free links they still get all of the same data collection they love (something our biggest competitors don't do).

In order to create an ad-free link you must log into your Linker account (your web browser must remember who you are: details). Once we know who you are, you'll now see the No Ad option:

(click to enlarge image)

Our ad-free Adjix links use the same basic redirect format the other popular link shrinkers use to shorten their URLs.

Additionally, you can hide the fact that you're using Adjix and private label your Adjix links so that your own domain name appears in the link instead of adjix.com or ad.vu. Details here.

- Joe

Adjix in the News Again

Adjix continues to receive attention in the press and in the blogosphere.

CNet reviewed Adjix this past Friday. I'd really like to know how they found out about Adjix just four days after our launch.

Here's another review by a blogger. After he received some criticism of his review from his readers he followed up with me and gave me a chance to respond.

Last, but not least, here's a Japanese review (translation) and Argentinean review (translation).

- Joe

Adjix Plug in Japan

Late, yesterday afternoon, something strange happened.

We saw a surge in traffic from Japan bigger than the one that followed Guy Kawasaki's plug on Twitter. After examining the server logs, we found that someone in Japan blogged about Adjix.

What does it say? Here's a rough translation.

In the last 96 hours, since our official launch on Tuesday, we've receive a bunch of attention. 

Here are just a few of the Adjix mentions:

1. SoCalTech.com

2. The North County Times saw the SoCalTech story and called me for an interview and ran this story.

3. Here's a blogger with a review of Adjix. This review points out some great issues which we've considered and prioritized since we began working on Adjix. We just launched, so features will improve over time.

4. Are people using Adjix? One way to tell is to see who's talking about it on Twitter:
Adjix on Twitter
ad.vu on Twitter (ad.vu are our ultra-short URLs)

- Joe

Adjix Plug From Guy Kawasaki

Yesterday was our official launch for Adjix. Today, Guy Kawasaki, Apple's first Macintosh evangelist, Tweeted about Adjix to his 18,200+ followers by saying "Make money by shortening links":
http://twitter.com/guykawasaki/statuses/893814052

Immediately, the network traffic to the Adjix servers spiked for hours. I'm impressed that all held up without skipping a beat. We'll see where this takes us.

- Joe

Premature Launch

Whoops - we were intending to launch Adjix as a public beta on Tuesday, August 20. But, our press release got out into the wild a couple days early and it was picked up here and here. Update: Plus two others, Monday morning, here and here.

That's okay – early publicity is better than no publicity. Adjix is up and running and humming along.

Since this really is a beta test period, please let us know about any bugs that you may find. You can use our feedback form.

Adjix Alpha Testing

We're currently alpha testing Adjix. Nearly all the features seem to be bug free and able to handle the foreseeable load so we should be in good shape.

As you navigate throughout Adjix we're sure you'll notice missing features. We have a long list of new enhancements we're looking to implement as quickly as possible to make everyone's life a little easier - but, we'd still like to hear your ideas. Feel free to sent us your feedback.

Also, feel free to contact either Kerry Kerr (760.444.0977) or Joe Moreno (760.444.4721).