The latest from TechCrunch
- Br.st Throws Its Hat Into The URL Shortener Ring
- Rails Rumble 2009 - Vote For Your Favorite App
- Vidly: Twitvid.io Changes Names, Direction, And Gets Funding
| Br.st Throws Its Hat Into The URL Shortener Ring | Top |
| Big surprise. There’s another URL shortening service that wants to throw its hat in the ring and into a field that’s pretty much saturated. Do we really need another URL shortener? Brinkster, the web-hosting startup behind Br.st seems to think so. Similar to many of its competitors, Br.st offers statistics (in your own time zone) about your links, including number of clicks, referrers, and origin (by country or region) of all of the clicks. Bit.ly, which is one of the current leaders in the URL shortening space, offers all of these analytics as well. Additionally, Br.st filters submitted links through malware filters. Br.st’s service lets you post to over 10 social networks and sites including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Digg, and will soon offer Google analytics. The site also offers bookmarklets to add to your toolbar. And Br.st has opened up its API. Br.st says that it will also offer image and filer sharing (similar to yFrog or TwiPic) and will let you see detailed stats on these links. Though full of useful features, Br.st is entering a space that’s inundated competitors and it’s a dog eat dog world out there in the URL shortening field. It seems that every week, there’s a new URL shortener out on the market. TweetMeme just debuted its own URL shortening service, ReTwet.me. Of course, one URL shortener Tr.im, has dropped out of the race. And recently, Royal Pingdom conducted a study on which URL shortener was the fastest and Ow.ly and Bit.ly came out on top. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Rails Rumble 2009 - Vote For Your Favorite App | Top |
| Ruby on Rails is well-known for being a powerful tool to help developers quickly turn ideas into working code. Rails Rumble harnesses that power and drives it to its only logical conclusion: a 48-hour programming competition pitting more than 200 teams of coders against one another for some pretty serious prizes . Each team of up to four people is provided with exactly the same thing: a virtual private server from Linode , a private repository on GitHub , and a really tight deadline. BYO caffeine. The competition has ended and now that many of the contestants are awake again, it’s time for the public to kick the tires on these mini-applications and vote to decide who will take home the championship belt (and no, that’s not a figure of speech in this case. There really is a belt). The 22 finalists include something for everyone, whether you’re a developer working to nail down requirements, a boozehound trying to figure out what cocktails you can make with the leftovers from last night’s party, an old-school arcade nut looking to play multi-player Asteroid, or a hopeless romantic trying to employ Twitter to woo a crush. Even the teams that don’t come away with any material prizes will have gained some very valuable feedback on whether their idea might have any legs in the long run. Fifteen of the entries from the 2008 competition are still active and available to users, including all of the prize-winning applications. So head on over and check out the applications , leave some feedback, and vote for your favorite(s). Voting ends tomorrow, Sunday, at 5 pm PST. You’ll be deciding a grand prize that includes a netbook for each team member and a bottle of 12 year Pappy Van Winkle Whiskey (from GitHub - I knew those guys were classy), not to mention year-long bragging rights. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Vidly: Twitvid.io Changes Names, Direction, And Gets Funding | Top |
| When Twitvid.io launched back in May, it was amid a mad rush of startups trying to become the “TwitPic of Video” for Twitter. This included another startup, Twitvid.com , which caused a lot of confusion among users. It also apparently brought out the cease and desist orders from Leo Laporte , who has the rights to the TWiT (This Week in Tech) name. Needless to say, the timing was right for a name change for Twitvid.io, and so they’ve done that. They’re now Vidly . But the change is about more than just removing user confusion and clearing up legal issues, it also represents a shift away from a sole focus on Twitter. Vidly’s new goal is to be the most convient way for people to share video on the web, no matter what service they use. And they’re going to start that by launching an iPhone app that will allow users to easily upload videos they take to a range of services including yes, Twitter and Facebook. And Vidly (which can also be spelled Vid.ly, as they own that domain as well as the dot com) already has a big time supporter: California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, when he’s not busy doing Q&A sessions at Twitter HQ , the Governator is using Vidly to spread his agenda. Here’s Schwarzenegger’s page on the site. While the first step is an iPhone app (alongside the website), Vidly co-founder Chrys Bader also says that BlackBerry and Android products are in the pipeline. “ Basically, we want to be anywhere where there is a video audience. And not necessarily just in the U.S. either, ” Bader tells us. Along those lines, the company has taken a $500,000 angel round of funding from the likes of Ron Conway and other individual investors. The money is being used to staff up, since the company currently only has 2 employees. Before Vidly was Twitvid.io, it was known as Fliggo , a Y Combinator startup. As Vidly, the startup still faces plenty of competition, though many are solely focused on Twitter video sharing right now. CrunchBase Information Vidly Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
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