Yes, Virginia, there really is a $6,000 Contest...

You might be checking out the XR.com blog to see if what you have heard is true. And indeed it is. Following the initial $5,000 which was donated to the Union Gospel Mission, we are holding a new contest conducted by JohnChow.com in which $5,000 will go to the charity of the winner's choice, and a further $1,000 to spend on themselves.

Thankfully we've not received any (serious) complaints about that ratio of charity:winner! Charity goes hand in hand at Christmas time, so the deadline for entry is Christmas Eve and the winner will be drawn on Dec 27th.

Check out John's page for the rules, but basically:

- sign up for an account at XR.com (if you don't have one already)

- write a blog post or article, or video blog about it, and include the name of the charity you are playing for

- maybe tell us what you're planning to do with the extra $1000

- include a review of XR.com, and link to http://xr.com/ using the keyword: Tiny URL (because that's what we create - tiny urls!)

- post should link back to the contest page at http://www.johnchow.com/6000-contest-from-john-chow-and-xrcom or http://xr.com/6k-contest

When your post is ready, send a trackback to John's page. If the trackback doesn't automatically show up on his page, then enter the URL of your post in the Comments section there.

Some faqs:

Will we get $6k worth of "value" from this?

> Um, that's not the point is it? We're having fun giving money to Charity, that's the point. So, the question is really - will we get $1k worth of value from the $1k non-Charity amount we're giving directly to the winner -- Yeah, I think so. Who knows? Who cares? We're having fun!

Can I give it to my needy brother?

> No. You remember George's "The Human Fund" from Seinfeld? We're pretty loose here, but it has to be a Registered Charity. Looking for one? We really like the folks at The Water School

I'm raising money for Charity, will you sponsor me?

> Possibly. But it has to have a massive reach (like say, tattooing XR.com across your neck while you run across the country - idea stolen from DomainTools.com). We've done this one just for fun, but if you are approaching us for another, show us that it'll be worth it and let's talk.

Who gets the tax write-off?
Well, this is really a moot point. If the $5k were to go directly to you, then you would need to claim that on your tax return as income, and then off-set it with the taxable donation receipt from the Charity. Depending on your income and other giving, you might actually owe taxes. (Disclaimer: we are not tax attorneys or accountants so don't rely on this for any legal or tax advice, nor for dry cleaning advice, nor for advice on your relationships, etc etc, blah blah). So, best that the funds go directly to the Charity. On our side, it doesn't make a difference since most Charities don't issue "tax receipts" to companies. It just goes under Expenses.

Spam Free...

Spam free tiny url links...

Not everything we do is first to market. Some things are just incorporating what we see done elsewhere and think to ourselves: "Good idea/implementation/social good". And here's one that we saw over at Mark Jeftovic's EasyURL.net. We're good friends with Mark and share the common social good of hating spam (but then who doesn't?). Mark's EasyDNS.com and my DomainManager.com are both tied in to the dns blacklist program where we don't allow domains to be added if they have been used for spam.

Naturally, we want to ensure that XR.com is also not used for spam. So, when we saw that EasyURL had tied in with SURBL.org - we just had to follow. Hat's off to Mark - it's a great social good idea.

XR.com is now protected with Spam-free tiny URL shortening. We won't create any XR tiny url links if the destination URL is listed in SURBL.org.

Private Password Key

Being that our XR tiny url links are so incredibly short, it can be possible for others to randomly type in characters to see where the links are going. So, a private password key allows you to require your visitor to enter a password before being taken to the destination web page.

For example, when your visitor goes to http://xr.com/vio they will see a Password box. If the visitor types in the correct password (in this case "test"), then he will continue on to the destination URL.

This can be used along with the custom tag, custom domain (like x.bb) and is easy to set. Just log in to your XR account, click 'edit' and set the Private to "yes". The Password is unique for each of your XR tiny url links, and can be turned on and off at anytime.

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Another use for this is for giving yourself password protected bookmarks. Let's say that you are sharing your PC/browser and you would like to bookmark an Amazon product page that you would like to buy for your significant other. Create a link at XR.com, set it to Private with a unique password, and then add that XR tiny url link to your Bookmarks. Now you have a password protected bookmark in your shared browser! Ditto for your office computer. Don't want your boss to know what you are getting him for Christmas!

WP Plug-in

Working on a Word Press Plug In so that you can create XR tiny url links to your blog posts for use in sharing...

Favicon - thx Jamie

In the true meaning of building this with input from our members and users, Jamie Parks build us a favicon to drop into the xr.com site.

"It will help users more easily identify xr.com in their bookmarks."

Thx Jamie - it's in and looks great!

Cool XR sites:

Eye Candy + Google = Groovle -- see it at: http://xr.com/0de

Kind of like XR.com, but for text: http://xr.com/tiny-text

WP themes: http://xr.com/wpthemes

Bookmarklet.....

From the www.xr.com/johnchow post, we had Chris Hunter ask"How about a bookmarklet to drag to my toolbar in FF?" In fact, he said it was a deal breaker..... "If I have to go to xr.com every time I need to create a URL, I won’t be using the service."

Ouch! Ok, let's take a look at this....

Seems that if we create a little Java script..... and send it to our API.... grunt..... toss in some scotch tape and string.... nip a little there..... tuck a little there..... google "IE7 sucks"...... ah, I think we got it. Let's see:

XR tiny url maker!

Click on this and then drag it up to your Links section in your toolbar.

IE Internet Explorer users: you can't drag this up, so here's what you do:
1. Put your mouse cursor over the link and right click.
2. On the menu, select "Add to Favorites"
3. A message may appear like - "You are adding a favorite that may not be safe. Do you want to continue?" - select "Yes"
4. It will say "Create in" and give you a list of Folders. The FOLDER to put this in is the "Links" folder.
5. Click "Add" and you are done.

Note: if you can't see the 'Links' toolbar, then in IE, select "View>Toolbars>Links" to make sure it's checked.
FF Note: if you can't see the 'Bookmarks' toolbar, select "View > Toolbars > Bookmarks Toolbar" and make sure it's got a tick beside it.

Now, when you are visiting a site and want to create a tiny url version of that URL, just click on the "XR tiny url maker!" button in your browser toolbar and we'll spit you back a shortened url faster than you can say lickety-lickety-splickety-lick.

Let us know if you run into any problems....

Thx

XR

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PS if you want a Bookmarklet that connects to the API so that you get nothing but the created tiny url, here ya go:

XR

John Chow post!

Wow -- XR.com has been used and reviewed by John Chow at JohnChow.com. You can see his article at http://xr.com/johnchow

We noticed a spike in traffic and tracked it down to the John Chow posting about our service. Reading the comments was immediately useful and we've already made changes based on the comments there.

Firstly we had to deal with new abuse. We saw that we were getting a lot more links in the "recent links" section on the main page at http://www.xr.com/ and, thanks to John Sullivan we saw some were going to adult pages. So, we pulled down the 'recent links' section.

Next, Mark and Michael both pointed out that xr.com isn't the "shortest" url service. Well, our claim to fame is that we are the shortest .com url service. But that's not really good enough is it? So, to claim the "shortest url service" we have to reveal our secret domain: x.bb We know of no other single character domain that is being used for a URL shortening service. It wasn't easy to get and let's consider this a "soft" launch since it's not hard-coded into the main site yet. But to use it, just replace xr.com with x.bb in the Customize section at http://www.xr.com/

Check it out: www.x.bb/radio

Finally, hats off to Scott Yang for dissing us about not having an API, for having a Frame (hey, we thought that was a plus), and for not having our ducks in a row before John Chow wrote about us. We don't like to disappoint, so we slapped together the instructions on our built, but not released API. The frame can be turned off when you log in to your account, and can also be turned off when you create a link using the API. The command is &direct=yes

See the full API instructions at http://apicode.xr.com/

So, keep the comments coming. Open to all critics, fans and users.

Thx!

XR

PS Since we took down the "recent link" and the "Show All Links" from the main page, the only way to see all the XR links that exist is here. Note that some might be NSFW.