LinkBunch is Down for Maintenance

It's been a while since I've posted here and what better time could it be than to announce a big change in LinkBunch since it's inception?

LinkBunch is currently down for maintenance. The service has gotten mightly popular and, as a result, the existing, rushed-up code didn't hold up too well. The database server was getting hammered, so I had to take the site down and sit and redevelop it.

Now that I know what kind of traffic I can expect on the site, I should be able to build a better performing, more scalable LinkBunch with a few extra features that have been requested often.

And, as a bonus, I'm also going to sit and redesign it!

Hold on to those links. We've got a lot more bunching to do!

Download.com lists LinkBunch

After covering it in WebWare, C|Net's newly opened web apps section on Download.com has now included LinkBunch.

We are delighted to inform you that our editors have selected LinkBunch to be listed on CNET Download.com. CNET Download.com is expanding its content coverage to include Web-based applications. We feel that your product is one of superior quality and essential to helping us build a world-class download library.

Head over to C|Net's Download.com listing of LinkBunch.

Lockergnome sees the future with LinkBunch!

Around ten years ago, I had developed an application called QCI, which was a back-up utility for the then popular ICQ instant messaging client. Lockergnome had written about it in the newsletter, which was all Lockergnome was back then!

Ten years later, I've developed something that fancies Lockergnome once again! LinkBunch is now featured in Lockergnome's April 15th post. Here's what Brandon Watts had to say about LinkBunch:

With online communication becoming more streamlined than ever, a lot of people are now communicating using links instead of words, and it’s time for links to be able to do more than just go to a single Web site. LinkBunch is about as simple as it could possibly be. All you do is provide a list of links that you’d like to create a single link for and the service will then bunch them all together so that when someone click on the LinkBunch link, they’ll see a list of URLs that they can then visit. You know, sometimes big things come in small packages.

Now I just hope it doesn't take me another ten years to make something that LG can wrote about once again! :)

New feature: "Copy Bunch to Clipboard"

It was highly ironic that LinkBunch made it so easy to share links by just pasting them all into a box, but it wasn't as easy to get the links back out of the bunch in the same format. Not anymore!

There's a new feature in LinkBunch - Copy Bunch to Clipboard - which, when clicked, copies all the links in the bunch to the clipboard in plain text format.

Due to size and layout restrictions, long links are snipped short when they get displayed. As a result, it isn't possible to simply select the links on the page and copy them to the clipboard. The new copy bunch to clipboard feature makes it even simpler now.

Try it: http://linkbun.ch/9yt

It's tested on Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. If you still run into any problems, do let me know.

LinkBunch at Barcamp Mumbai 3

All roads lead to IITB in Powai, Mumbai this weekend as the famed Barcamp Mumbai 3 will finally take place on the 29th of March.

I will be "introducing" LinkBunch in the product demo/startup introduction track, so do join in if you'd like to talk about it or just watch me do the talking! I will also be collaborating with Chetan Thaker (@ceetee) for a session on Dropbox in the Technology Track, so stick around!

Don't know what Barcamp is? A simple Google search will help, and so will this brief entry on Wikipedia.

See you there!

LinkBunch featured in C|Net's WebWare!

C|Net's WebWare, a Web 2.0 resource I frequent several times a day, has mentioned LinkBunch!

They had the usual stuff to say about what it does and what it's used for, but Josh Lowensohn was a little turned off by the fact that a LinkBunch with a single link would still show you the whole page instead of redirecting you to that link directly. Well, Josh, I didn't add that feature because LinkBunch was always meant to be used for more than just one link. For single link URL shortening/redirection, I'd recommend regular TinyURL services like xrl.in or url.ie! But still, thanks for the mention!

Visit: LinkBunch makes multiple huge URLs tiny (C|Net WebWare)

New Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Following changes to the Google AdSense Terms of Use, LinkBunch now has a privacy policy and terms of use page in place. Please take a moment to read through the text on the page.

Continued use of LinkBunch indicates your agreement with the terms of use and acceptance of the privacy policy.

Thank you!

LinkBunch gets featured in the Mumbai Mirror!

LinkBunch has been deemed useful enough to be featured as a site of the day in Mumbai Mirror's Sci-Tech section today, the 26th of February, 2008.

Here is a grab from the epaper website:



And here is a link to the web version of the post.

This is what was written:

While browsing the Web, you might come across several interesting links that you want to share with your friends. But copy-pasting each of them can be quite a task, and also looks messy. Today’s resource, LinkBunch, promises to make this easier, by letting you create one common address for all your links. Simply copy-paste them in the box provided, and click “Bunch” to get a unique address that can be sent to friends. Once they open it, they can either visit the links individually or all of them at the same time.

Simple and to-the-point, just the way LinkBunch is!

LinkBunch goes blue da ba dee da ba daee...

By popular demand, LinkBunch has now gone completely blue, which is admitted a lot cooler, literally and figuratively, than the older red.

However, just being cooler and popular isn't the only reason I decided to switch. The main reason is that most links on the web are blue in color. It only makes sense for a site that deals with links to be of that color!

Yeah, okay it isn't #0000FF, but #003366 will do the job!

Major IE functionality flaw and a minor CSS flaw... fixed!

Thanks to Kevin S. Brady for pointing this out. And shame on everyone else (including me) for not trying out LinkBunch in Internet Explorer all this while!

The bug would prevent anyone using IE from creating a link bunch. This happened when I changed from the regular, form "Bunch" button to a fancy looking image button. IE sends the image button along with co-ordinates like 'bunch.x' and 'bunch.y' but Firefox continues with a simple 'bunch'. The script looked for the bunch button text and only created the bunch if it was specified, hence it would fail on IE. This was a really stupid but, but it's fixed now!

Also, a minor CSS bug prevented the page from being centered properly in IE. That's also fixed now.

Previews of links in LinkBunches

Another quick update - LinkBunch will now let you see a pop-up preview of the linked pages in a bunch when you hover over the little bubble icon next to each link. The previews will help users in deciding whether to click on links or not - if they aren't sure of what the links are.

These are Snap previews that have gotten a lot of flak in the past, but I've set them to only show up when you hover over the icon - not the full link. That can be quite irritating and I personally don't like it.

Let me know what you think of the previews.

LinkBunch API now available

As promised, the API for creating LinkBunches via code is now available. There are no fancy classes or anything - it's a really simple method of sending an HTTP GET request to the linkbun.ch server and getting a LinkBunch link as a response.

Visit: LinkBunch API

LinkBunch on TechCrunch^H^H^H...

First Download Squad, then LifeHacker, and now TechCrunch? Well, almost. Around four hours ago, TechCrunch's Duncan Riley wrote about LinkBunch, but pulled it off shortly after. Why? No one knows.

Fortunately, @preshit (who was also the one to point it out in the first place!) grabbed a screen from his NNW and put it up on his Skitch:

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Here's a transcript of the post:

URL shortening services have grown in popularity as services such as Twitter have driven demand for shorter URLs (although the idea has been around for a long time).

For those not familiar with the concept, you add a URL to one of these services, and it provides you with a shortened URL you can share with friends. Some also come with bookmarklets for one click shortening.

LinkBun.ch takes the idea of shortening URLs to multiple sites. Users simply add the URL's they want a LinkBun.ch URL for, and they get a short URL in return. For example, http://linkbun.ch/0hl offers a page with links to both TechCrunch and CrunchGear on it, that can be shared on Twitter or similar services with friends.

LinkBun.ch isn't going to win any awards for being amazing, but none of the services in this thriving sector would. Ultimately it's a case of simplicity combined with functionality and LinkBun.ch meets that criteria.

I know it's difficult to get Arrington to link to your site, but at least I can say I was almost there. :)

A cleaner homepage and a verbose help page!

Just updated LinkBunch to have a cleaner homepage, free of all the detail and moved the details along with other FAQs to a dedicated help page.

If you have any questions that you'd like me to add to the FAQ page, drop me a line.

LinkBunch makes it to LifeHacker!

Another one of my daily reads has posted about LinkBunch. LifeHacker's Kevin Purdy has this to say about my multiple-links-in-one service:

Head to LinkBunch, type or paste in your addresses one per line, and you'll get a LinkBunch URL that points to a fast-loading page with all your links on it, as well as a meta-link that opens them all. Better still, Firefox users can install a LinkBunch extension that lets you automatically submit all your open tabs for a LinkBunch URL.

He picked it up from the original post on LifeHacker Australia, who's Sarah Stokely really liked the 'Open entire bunch' and the idea of the upcoming Twitter bot for LinkBunch:

I can definitely see LinkBunch having a place in my browser alongside TinyURL, and active Twitter users will also be interested to know that LinkBunch is also being integrated into Twitter. [...] Nice.

Sarah in turn picked it up from Web Worker Daily, where Mike Gunderloy said:

LinkBunch is a link-shortening service (similar to the selection we reviewed a while back), but with a twist: you can enter a whole list of links, and it will give you one shorter link to represent them all.

Thanks everyone for the support!

Note: The server issue of a blank page has been sorted, and now you can access LinkBunch without any problem. Here's a bunch with all the abovementioned links: http://linkbun.ch/sx

Linkbun.com -> Linkbun.ch Migration

I'm making linkbun.ch the default domain for LinkBunch and that requires some configuration changes that may take either of the domains, or both, offline for some time.

By the time you read this, the change should have happened and you probably won't notice anything, but if you do land up on LinkBunch within the next few minutes and don't see anything there, this should give you an answer!

LinkBunch Firefox Extension Preview

This extension will easily let you bunch all your open tabs into one LinkBunch.

Note: This extension is not yet compatible with Firefox 3, as it hasn't been approved for public use by the Mozilla Add-ons site. If you have a Mozilla Sandbox account, head over to the page for the LinkBunch extension and post a review.



As of now, this extension will need to be downloaded and installed manually:

Install:

1. Click here: linkbunch.xpi to download the extension.
2. After downloading, drag and drop it from Windows Explorer into an open Firefox window or tab and you will get the Add-on installation dialog.
3. Wait for a couple of seconds and click Install.
4. Restart browser

Usage: To bunch current open tabs, pull down the Bookmarks menu and click 'Create a LinkBunch of tabs'. The page with the created LinkBunch will open in another new tab.

Bugs?
As usual, leave comments here or on Twitter or aalaap AT gmail.com with requests, suggestions, bugs or just a 'hi' ;)

LinkBunch makes it to Download Squad!

One of my favorite download/web/technology blogs, Download Squad, has written about LinkBunch. Thanks, DS!

Download Squad also mentioned that a bookmarklet to create a bunch from open tabs would be nice. While a bookmarklet wouldn't be possible due to security issues, an extension is certainly possible.

While Googling, I came across another few sites writing about LinkBunch. Here's a bunch of those links ;) - http://linkbun.ch/6d

New shorter domain Linkbun.ch is now live!

Okay, it took a bit shorter than I expected it to take!

The new, shorter domain for LinkBunch - LinkBun.ch - is now live and accessible to everyone. As mentioned before, the new .ch domain is interchangeable with the older .com domain, so all link bunches made before this with the older domain will work just fine with the new domain.

The logo and text on the website still refer to LinkBunch.com, but that will change in a short while. And while I'm at it, I'll ask you right away: what color do you want the logo in? Post your answers in the comments below! :)

LinkBunch public beta new live!

Hey, just a quick post to let you all know that LinkBunch's public beta has now gone live.

Originally, I've been waiting for a shorter domain - linkbun.ch - to go live, but that hasn't happened yet and it looks like it will take a few more days. The current domain linkbunch.com will continue to work even after linkbun.ch becomes active and the links will be interchangeable, i.e. linkbunch.com/0a will be the same thing as linkbun.ch/0a.

If you find any bugs, you can..

1. leave comments here or anywhere on this blog


2. just twitter about it, and i'll find it


3. email aalaap at gmail.com with 'LinkBunch bug' in the subject.

Note: This shorter domain came about after a discussion with @puneet - thanks, dude!

LinkBunch enters private beta!

It was supposed to go public from day one, but last minute complications made me decide to put LinkBunch into private beta first. The first hand-picked and also some random bunch of beta testers on Twitter have already got their invites.

If you want to get on the beta and you're on Twitter, follow me and let me know!

LinkBunch Twitter bot! Snazzy!

I use Twitter a whole lot, so naturally it would make more sense for me to find a way to integrate LinkBunch and Twitter.

After having a word with @abhin4v (thanks, dude!), who has just written a Twitter bot for MyAnimeList, I've taken @linkbunch for use as the bot.

It will work in very simple manner. You need to follow @linkbunch. After that, whenever you need to make a bunch out of a few links, just send it a direct message with all the links and the bot will reply back with your bunch link. Doesn't get any easier than this!

As it says on it's Twitter page, the bot is not yet active, but neither LinkBunch!

Patience! :)

Tiny ID generation code in place

I was experimenting with different methods of using short IDs to represent the link bunches, but I figured it would be inconvenient to have IDs like C3GE6AF4 (CRC) or 2781f758c6b29151008187a96f497bebd52f5810 (MD5). TinyURL and similar sites have shorter codes that aren't based on any hashing algorithm and they prove to be convenient as well as efficient, so I sat down to write a simple permutation-based ID generator.

This post is only to let you know that it's finished and now you'll have tiny IDs for use with the link bunches you create :)

Meanwhile, here is an interesting, relevant read pointed out by @codelust: URL Shortening: Hashes In Practice

LinkBunch.com gets a new logo!

Here's the new logo for LinkBunch. I like it, friends like it, so I think I'm gonna keep it.



Dunno if I'll ever remove the Beta tag though.. it does add a bit of shine to the logo, doesn't it? :)

Welcome to the official blog of LinkBunch!

Hello and welcome to the official blog for LinkBunch, a new link aggregation service. But what is LinkBunch? Read on...

A link bunch is just that - a bunch of links. Often you find several links on the web that you want to share on services such as instant messengers (Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, etc.) or microblogging platforms such as Twitter (which has a 140-character limit) and Pownce (which only has one link field). With LinkBunch, you take all those links and put them into one "bunch", which is just one single link--which looks like a TinyURL or SnipURL link--and give that around instead. Saves space, looks cleaner and saves a few bytes of bandwidth! :)

LinkBunch is secure. People will generally share non-sensitive links, but if you have something that you don't want other people to see (too easily), you can add a password to the bunch that you create. Only viewers who put in the right password will be able to see the contents of the link bunch! You can also easily delete any bunch by clicking on the kill link that you will receive in your email when you create a bunch. Additionally, each bunch is valid for upto 30 days from the last click. If no one clicks on your bunch for a month, it will get deleted automatically.

LinkBunch is accessible.Even though it's a Web 2.0-age service, LinkBunch doesn't use or need AJAX technology to make things work. The website is readily accessible from mobile devices without any changes. Although you'd only just want to visit a link bunch and not create one on a mobile phone!

LinkBunch is programmer-friendly. There will be easy to use APIs that will let you submit and create link bunches programatically, via PHP or ASP or whatever you want!

LinkBunch is coming soon.I just registered the domain and bought hosting space. It'll take a day or so to go live, after which LinkBunch will enter public beta... naturally! So bookmark http://www.linkbunch.com and check it out in a couple of days!

- Aalaap Ghag