ShortSwitch

New Feature - CSV Export

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:01:19 -0500

Right before Thanksgiving we had our first real (albeit short) outage. We had implemented some new statistic features which ended up putting too much strain on the server and database. Unfortunately we were forced to back those features out but some good did come of the outage - as a measure to ensure to our customers that their data is always safe and always theirs we have rolled out the ability to export all of your links via CSV.

You’ll find the link at the bottom of your Dashboard. If your account is set up so non-admin can only see their own links, the CSV export link will only export your own link. Otherwise the resulting CSV file will contain data for all of the links on your account.

We know this data is important to you and your business and we treat it that way.

New Features - Allow duplicate URLs, filter spam URLs, token/URL search

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:31:04 -0500

We have recently rolled out a number of new features that we’re pretty excited about.

When ShortSwitch was originally released there was a desire to only allow a given long URL to be shortened once and any subsequent shortenings of that long URL would return the existing token. Our users have spoken and we have now made this feature optional. By default the functionality is the same as it was before. Turn the Allow Duplicate URLs feature on and you can shorten the same URL as often as you’d like each time with a different token.

Another request we received from our users was the ability to run a long URL through a filter before it’s shortened. It’s great to give users the ability to shorten URLs but some times they just end up abusing it. With the Filter URLs option turned on the URL will be compared against the SURBL list of known problem URLs.

ShortSwitch is going strong and our users have been very busy shortening URLs. But the more you shorten harder it is to find that one token or URL you remembered using a couple months ago. To help with that we’ve introduced Searching of tokens and URLs. You can then filter or sort those results. Or search filtered or sorted results!

You may have noticed that these new features come from user requests and needs. We’re listening so keep the feedback coming!

A Milestone!

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 15:13:04 -0400

We just passed through 1,000,000 redirections yesterday. Our traffic is growing monthly, and hit a knee in the curve so to speak over the last month. This is a milestone for our site, and we appreciate the almost 500 customers that have helped us reach this goal. Compared to bit.ly this is a drop in the bucket, but you have to remember that our business plan is different.

We aren’t a public URL shortener. We offer a branded or white-labeled platform for companies and individuals.
Our target customer is the company that is willing to spend $4 to $25/month for a branded URL shortener with a bevy of “enterprise” level features, but not $995/month…
We are boot-strapped. The problem we are trying to solve is not a $15-million-dollar-investment type of problem.

We offer a service, API, and functionality that you or your company can leverage without having to build yourself and without having to fear it will disappear tomorrow (like some other free services).

We now support shortening mailto and ftp links.

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 10:47:00 -0400

We now support shortening mailto and ftp links.

Additional Features To Maintain Your Brand

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:04:46 -0400

We recently had a request to allow the root URL of your white-labeled domains to be redirected to another location, instead of the ShortSwitch homepage. Seemed like a great idea, so we added the feature. Now if someone sees your pithy short domain, and either strips the token or enters an invalid token, you can have them directed to a location on your web site. Both a custom invalid URL and a homepage redirect URL can be added in your account settings.

Using ShortSwitch as your TweetDeck Custom URL Shortener

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:03:22 -0400

The TweetDeck Twitter client allows users to choose which URL shortening service they would like to use. They also allow you to specify an API string that allows you to choose any URL shortening service assuming that service returns the correct data. With the introduction of the “simple” format, ShortSwitch can return that data allowing you to use your ShortSwitch user as your default URL shortener for TweetDeck.

To do so simply log into your account and go to the Tools page. Scroll down to the section “TweetDeck Custom URL Shortener” and copy your unique API string. Then follow the TweetDeck directions for choosing a URL shortener (http://support.tweetdeck.com/entries/132632) and paste in the API string you copied.

You’ll be all set to use ShortSwitch as your TweetDeck URL shortener!

If you’d like to read more about the new “simple” format, please visit the API page.

Accounts and Users

Fri, 21 May 2010 15:00:00 -0400

When you create an account on ShortSwitch we ask for the domain that you want to use as your branded URL service and an email address and password that will be used for the account administrator. For plans that support multiple users, the administrator can create additional users with separate logins to the account. Only people with a valid login can create shortened URLs using your domain. As a user, when you login to the dashboard you see all links that have been created on the account. You can sort and filter on links by different users, and track which links are the most popular.

It’s a pain to have to login to create a new shortened URL. Therefore, we support various tools via our API so that you can shorten links from other applications. The simplest and easiest is via our bookmarklet. Each user on your account has a bookmarklet (see image) that they can add to their favorite browser. When you are on a website page that you want to create a shortened URL for, then you click your bookmarklet and it generates the short URL, and opens a new window with the details of the URL. This saves you the step of logging in to create the URL.

Each bookmarklet is tied to a user via their API key. If you need to reset your API key to make an old bookmarklet unusable, you can do that in the Users section of our dashboard. For example, let’s say you broke up with your boyfriend, but the bookmarklet is on his laptop, and you are worried he might create shortened links to some NSFW sites. Reset your API key and the old bookmarklet will stop working.

Bit.ly-Style Tokens

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:04:00 -0400

We have added an account option that allows you to switch to a bit.ly-style randomly generated 6 character token for your shortened URL. By default we use a base 58 incrementing counter that starts with a single character and increases from there.

Examples are: http://shor.tswit.ch/1 or http://shor.tswit.ch/7a

Some users have desired an non-incrementing counter so that links are not as easily guessable. To get a randomly generated 6 character token goto your account settings and check the box that says Use Random Token Generator.

Voila, your links can now look like this: http://l.neutronflux.net/1LL1Zx

Shortened URLs as QR Codes

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:54:43 -0400

QR Codes are starting to catch on in the US.

We offer two easy ways to turn your shortened URL into a 2-D barcode. First, you can get a QR code for your shortcode by making a request to your shortened URL with the added suffix of “.qr”. For example, the 2-D code for the link above is http://shor.tswit.ch/7a.qr and the resulting QR code is seen to the left.

The second way you can generate a QR code is by clicking on the button that says QR Code in the link details area of your dashboard.

Our dashboard and short URL details pages now show Twitter...

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:17:45 -0400

Our dashboard and short URL details pages now show Twitter mentions for your link.

Dashes are now allowed in your custom short URL tokens. Let us...

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:00:46 -0400

Dashes are now allowed in your custom short URL tokens. Let us know what other features you want.

An Introduction to ShortSwitch

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:59:48 -0500

An Introduction to ShortSwitch

Branded Shortener... No DNS Change Required

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:47:52 -0500

Some companies already have a great domain that is an ideal candidate for use as an URL shortener; however, the root domain is already in use for the website. Other companies require an act of God to change any DNS settings. Initially, our service would handle the former by recommending that the company use a sub domain, and we would handle the later by asking to whom should we pray. Now we have another option that allows multiple uses of a domain, and does not require any DNS changes. You can configure your account to run at a path off of your domain.

To use the feature do the following:

Choose a domain whose web server settings you have the ability to modify. This means that you or someone in your company must have the ability to modify the configuration of the web or application server that is used to serve that domain. If you put Google or Myspace as your domain, then please contact us. First, because you probably don’t have the ability to use those domains. Second, if you do have the ability to use those domains, then we want to make sure we are scaling to suit your needs… anyway let’s get back on track.
During account sign up choose the domain that you want to use as your URL shortener. If you already have an account you can change the domain that is being used within your account settings. By default the system assumes that you will modify your DNS settings to have that domain resolve to our server. We are now going to change some accounts settings to use rewrites instead.

Login to account. Under the Account settings, enable the setting Use Rewrites Instead of a DNS Change.
Next, you need to pick a path at which your shortening service will run. On the accounts page this is called the Prepend Path. You will probably want to make this path as short as possible, so you might want to choose a single letter. For example, this link to the Olympics site, http://eyestreet.com/s/olympics, has been setup with the domain of eyestreet.com and the prepend path of s.
The last step is to modify your web server configuration settings to rewrite all requests that come to your server at that path, and redirect them to our server. We provide examples for both Apache and Nginx. Make sure to use the proper subdomain for sending us your redirect. The example below is the rewrite rule that is in use for the link above.

You are now ready to go. With a little bit of configuration you can use one domain for both your website and your branded URL shortener.

New Feature - Edit your URL

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:55:56 -0500

New to the Dashboard is the ability to edit the long or shortened URL. Just click the edit button and make your changes on the dialog box that appears. It’s that easy.

You should note, however, if you change the short URL by changing the token any links that point to the old shortened URL will no longer work. So edit those with care.

Shortening Links In Any Text Field

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:28:00 -0500

New to the Tools area (you must be logged in) is a bookmarklet that allows you to shorten all the urls in any text field. Just make sure the text field is the active field and hit the bookmark. It will do the rest.

For example, after adding the bookmarklet to your toolbar, log into your Twitter account and type your message in the What’s Happening text box. With the cursor still in that text box click the bookmarklet. A call is made behind the scenes to the ShortSwitch server that will shorten all the urls you have in your message. A javascript alert will pop up letting you know which urls were shortened and what they were shortened to. In Firefox, if you don’t like the results or if it didn’t shorten a url correctly (oh no!) you can hit Undo and your text will revert back to what it was before.

And you can do this with any text field, textarea, or text-editable div on any website.

Twitter:

Facebook:

If you have a favorite site that you find isn’t working with the bookmarklet, just let us know.

When are your links most likely to get clicked based on past...

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:39:41 -0500

When are your links most likely to get clicked based on past performance? Check out your stats page to find out.

What does the X do… probably what you think it does. It deletes...

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:59:48 -0500

What does the X do… probably what you think it does. It deletes your shortened URL completely from the system. The link will no longer be on your dashboard, and it will no longer redirect. Deletion is restricted to the user who created the link and the admin on the account.

Using ShortSwitch with Tweetie on the Mac

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:33:00 -0500

We “eat our own dog food” with our branded domain: shor.tswit.ch. To use another idiom, the first itch that I wanted to scratch after launching ShortSwitch was integrating with my favorite Twitter client, Tweetie.

Tweetie 2 for the iPhone already supports custom URL shorteners, so you can easily add support for a ShortSwitch account, and we discuss how under our tools area (you must be logged in). Unfortunately, Tweetie for the Mac does not yet support custom shorteners within the application. I am sure that functionality will be added in the next release, but I wanted something now, so I created a bookmarklet that shortens the URL of the page I am viewing. Then it sends the title of the page and the shortened link to Tweetie for editing in a new message.

The bookmarklet, customized with a logged in users’s API key, can be found in the tools area (you must be logged in).

If you are so inclined you can read on to see how we did it. I don’t know why you would want to use any other short URL service, but if you do then you could make your own custom Tweetie poster.

When you click on our bookmarklet link, it loads another javascript file from our site as seen in the first snippet below. The reason for this indirection is to get around the limitations of what you can do within a javascript bookmarklet (e.g. single function call, no spaces, etc) and give us the ability to update the business logic if needed.

The requested file has the user’s API key, so the call can be made to the user’s ShortSwitch account. We take advantage of our JSON support and return the shortened URL in JSONP. The callback function that was provided on the shorten URL request is now called. In our case our call back is the openTweetie function. It launches Tweetie and passes the title of the web page and the resulting shortened link.

Introducing ShortSwitch.com: Brand Your Short URLs

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 17:20:18 -0500

We are a URL shortening service that allows you to use your own domain or subdomain and namespace for your shortened URLs. Our service provides:

Branded Short URLs - Your service allows you to have your own short URL service using your own domain, without the need to create it yourself.
Smaller Tokens - Your short URL tokens start with a single character, and you will have to create 195,112 short URLs before your tokens would grow past three characters.
Vanity Tokens - Your short URL tokens can be customized without worry about their already being in use.
Secure Link Creation - Only authorized and authenticated users on your account can create short URLs.
API Support - Your API supports link creation via various tools. The API matches bit.ly’s API to ease your transition.
Reporting - Your dashboard provides reporting and statistics on your short URLs including the ability to sort and filter by various attributes such as popularity (i.e. most hits) and users.

Before we finish, let’s address the elephant (or large puffer fish) in the room. We assumed that bit.ly might launch a service like this at some point when we started this project. When bit.ly pro was announced last month it was the catalyst for our team to “ship it”. So, instead of waiting for a bit.ly pro account, why not try our service today?

Psst... Hello World!

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:35:00 -0500

Psst... Hello World!:

ShortSwitch is ready for business. More to follow…