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More Ways To Shorten Those URLs: UnHub And Lnk.by

Posted: 19 Apr 2009 04:19 AM PDT

URL shortening services are a dime a dozen, and despite wishes for them to vanish (with good reason) they’re here to stay and more popular than ever given the abundance of social services that thrive on short messages and links. TinyURL and bit.ly appear to be the more popular of the bunch, but we’re seeing other services use their own custom URL shortening services at an increasing rate. To name but a few, Digg uses its top domain for the DiggBar and associated links, Posterous uses post.ly to trim down links when they distribute them to other networks and Twitter toolbox HootSuite uses ow.ly.

The latest startup to add a URL shortening feature to its service is UnHub, which we covered last month. Paste any URL after unhub.com and if you’re registered for the service, you’ll get a custom short URL you can use to distribute links to articles and such. On top of the linked website will be an iframe (yes, yet another one) where you can view the number of Diggs, bookmarks on Delicious, and redirects on bit.ly. You can also tweet, e-mail or share the link on a plethora of third-party services right from the toolbar. It’s also personalized, so people can jump to your own UnHub profile from the persistent bar, or straight to the source link. For an example, go to http://unhub.com/pC16.

Another one that just surfaced (in alpha mode) is Lnk.by, which adds a twist to URL shortening in the sense that you can pick a short URL that suits what you’re linking to i.e. it brings some context to what you’re sharing. You can share music files using Lstn.in, videos with Wach.it, photos with Seee.it and articles with Read.im. Other than that, there’s nothing really noteworthy about the service, apart from the fact it comes with an API and a toolbar bookmarklet, and that it was built by an Endemol executive with a friend in just one weekend.

Feel to shorten the URL for this article with both services and tell us which one you prefer (or why you hate URL shortening services).

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UK Tech Icons Launch Seed Fund To Bridge The Gap For European Startups

Posted: 19 Apr 2009 02:50 AM PDT

Two icons of the UK’s tech startup world are joining forces to create a new fund to address the so-called ‘equity gap’ in Europe. European Founders Capital (EFC) is being led by Michael Birch, co-founder of Bebo, and Brent Hoberman, who set up the dotcom bubble era Lastminute.com but is better known more recently for being a serial angel investor and co-founder of MyDeco.

EFC will have an initial $29.5m (£20m) of seed funding but is aiming for $74m (£50m) in total. The idea is to increase the availability of early-stage funding in Europe, which historically lags behind the US, and has led to a gap between early stage and Series A funding. Europe’s seed funding eco-system has never matched Silicon Valley’s in part because the business angel environment for technology is undeveloped and because European VCs have historically not reached much lower than Series A rounds, unless in syndication with other parties.

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Herebeforeoprah.com Asks The Important Question

Posted: 18 Apr 2009 06:44 PM PDT

picture-17 It’s not yet clear exactly what effect Oprah had on Twitter by featuring the service (and its first million-follower user, Ashton Kutcher) on her show on Friday. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone tells me he’s going to try and get some numbers as to just how many people signed up thanks to Oprah, sometime next week. But, Twitter Search already reveals that it’s a massive amount.

When anything gains mainstream popularity, there are always some early adopters who will start denouncing it. Some do this out of spite, some out of odd principle, some because they think they’re too cool to do something that a lot of other people do. But, I’m here to tell you that there’s another way.

Instead of being a jackass and pouting about the “good old days of Twitter,” just visit herebeforeoprah.com. The simple service asks the question, “was _______ here before oprah?” Simply fill in the blank with your Twitter name and if you adopted early enough, you’ll get confirmation of your Twitter street cred. For example, I’m very pleased to get a response, “@parislemon was here before @oprah.”

I understand why some of you are upset about Oprah “ruining” Twitter, I really do. I put in countless hours/days/months of mindless 140 character messages just like the rest of you. But suck it up, and get your revenge by letting Oprah know that despite her gaining over 300,000 followers in a day, you beat her to the service.

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Hollywood Has A Great Online Distribution Model — If You Hate Selection

Posted: 18 Apr 2009 04:17 PM PDT

In a golf tournament, it can be advantageous to putt after another player because you learn the contours of the path to the hole. In a similar way, you’d think Hollywood would have learned from the rough path the music industry took in transitioning to the world of digital distribution over the web. Unfortunately, it looks to be on the verge of missing the putt as well.

On the surface, it seems like Hollywood is doing a better job of getting consumers to use their approved methods for transferring content over the web — but the reality is that it’s a mess. And the only reason piracy isn’t so rampant in the US is that our broadband speeds, for the most part, suck.

Sure, there are a lot of channels to get films legally over the web. iTunes, Xbox Live, Amazon, Netflix and Hulu are all doing a fairly good job at making the content they’re given, accessible. Unfortunately, it’s the content that’s the problem. If you go to any of those services looking for a specific movie, there’s a very good chance that it won’t be available. And that can be true even if it was available on the service in the past. It’s a nightmare.

Farhad Manjoo had a good article yesterday on Slate outlining some of the major problems. One of the biggest ones is that Hollywood’s archaic syndication rules are in play with digital distribution over the web. For example, Hollywood now gives some movies to services like iTunes for rental immediately or soon after they’re released. But because of the deals studios have in place with premium content channels like HBO, after the pay-per-view window closes (iTunes and the other services’ rentals systems are considered pay-per-view), these movies have to be pulled off of the rental services so that the premium channels can get their exclusive rights to broadcast them.

Those movies then stay exclusive to the premium channels for 15 to 18 months — let me repeat 15 to 18 months! And from there it only gets worse. After the year and a half in premium channel jail, movies then go to the regular cable channels and big networks for airing. As I understand it, some online rentals are again okay during this time, but then, they often go back to the premium channels for a second run. That means they get pulled once again.

This whole process often lasts for seven years or more, as Manjoo notes. It’s only after that time period that movies are really free to be distributed a bunch of different ways. That includes Netflix’s popular Watch Instantly streaming feature — so now you see why the selection of movies on that service is mostly older films. In fact, basically, the only newer ones they offer is because of their deal with Starz, the premium cable channel. That deal may have been one of the smartest ones Netflix has made yet, because at least it gives us access to some movies this side of 2002.

The fact that online distribution has to play in this foolish game of broadcast rights tennis, is of course, bullshit. The brick and mortar rental stores of yesteryear, like Blockbuster, don’t have to play by these ridiculous rules. Movies don’t vanish from their shelves because they’re playing on HBO for the next 18 months. If they did, Blockbuster would have been in trouble a lot sooner than its most recent woes (tied to its failure to get out in front of new forms of distribution).

So how can anyone really expect any of the online movie services to flourish under such restrictions? They shouldn’t, because none of them truly will until Hollywood changes these rules. And with billions of dollars at stake, Hollywood probably isn’t going to do it anytime soon. In fact, I’d venture to guess that the only thing that will force their hands is if services like BitTorrent, which people use to distribute pirated movies, continue to gain popularity as broadband access and speeds improve.

In other words, things may change when Hollywood starts getting screwed just like the music industry got screwed.

Seriously, search for a bunch of new movies you want on iTunes rentals, Netflix Watch Instantly and a torrent tracker. Which has the best selection? It’s certainly going to be the torrent tracker — and that gives you the movies for free.

The success of iTunes music store has proven that people are willing to pay for content (it’s now the largest music retailer, bigger than even Wal-mart), but the key factor is ease of use — of which, selection is a big part. It’s beyond frustrating to search a service for something you really want to pay to watch, only to find it doesn’t offer it. Hollywood is leaving money on the table.

I could go on about other ridiculous things is doing to screw up online distribution. For example, the fact that while a lot movies are available to buy on the day they’re release, most cannot be rented online until a few weeks later. But it’s all part of the same problem.

Hollywood is scared to embrace the move to online distribution. It’s still holding out hope that Blu-ray will catch on and become their next multi-billion dollar cash cow. That’s not happening. For most people, Blu-ray simply doesn’t offer enough of an improvement over DVD. Online distribution, with its instant access, does. Will Hollywood realize that too late?

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A Sign Of The Times: fbFund Shifts To Incubator Model

Posted: 18 Apr 2009 04:16 PM PDT

Earlier this week Facebook detailed some of the changes it is making to fbFund, its joint venture with Accel Partners and Founders Fund designed to help reward and foster the most encouraging applications on Facebook Platform, which launched 2007. In prior rounds, fbFund’s primary function was to distribute seed funding, with the last round’s 25 finalists taking home $25,000 and the final winners each receiving $225,000 cash grants.

Now the program is expanding to include a new Incubator Program (no doubt inspired by the likes of Y Combinator and TechStars), which will invite a few startups to interact with key Facebook personnel, as well as some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent entrepreneurs. Among the VCs and companies contributing their expertise to the program are First Round Capital, Tapulous, Zynga, Slide, and over a dozen other that can be found on this list. In addition, Facebook is also announcing today that Eric Ries will be taking part in the program.

Facebook will be accepting applications to the program, which is being led by Dave McClure, until April 20th. While it’s still unclear how many startups will be invited to participate in the Incubator program, they will be drawn from a pool of 50 finalists. The program will run from June through August.

Also interesting to note is that for this round winners can receive up to $100,000 in equity investment, while previous rounds have been ‘no strings attached’ - a change that may indicate, as VentureBeat notes, that Facebook and its partners may see the current round as being more lucrative than previous rounds (I also suspect, given the greater time investment involved with the new program, that they would like to see some kind of return).

For more details, check out Facebook’s blog post here.

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