In previous releases of Smub, there was a bit of problem when using Cyrillic and Japanese characters when tweeting. Smub was displaying “????” rather than the correct characters. We are happy to announce that this issue has been fixed! If you’re having any additional difficulties, please let us know so that we can address them immediately!

Looks like Vanity URLs are all the rage this week! At 12:01 AM EDT on Saturday, June 13, Facebook began offering its users the option to customize the web addresses for their profiles with their own usernames, allowing Facebookers to stake claim to the names, nicknames and internet handles that have come to represent their online lives. These vanity URLs proved very popular — within just 15 minutes of opening, Facebook registered over 500,000 usernames!

Well, guess what, friends! Smub let’s you create vanity URLs every single time you bookmark a link! When you register your free Smub account, you get to choose a username to represent you, your brand, your online persona, anything you like. Every link you bookmark with Smub is automatically customized with your chosen username. So, no matter where you share your bookmarks or what your bookmarks are about, people see your username right there in the middle of the link, making every bookmarked URL a vanity URL.

Want to stake claim to your Smub username? Register now! It’s free, it’s easy and you don’t have to wait up till midnight to do it!

Seth Godin, marketing coach for millions, has posted a primer on what makes “viral marketing” on his blog today. In it, he observed:

Something being viral is not, in an of itself, viral marketing. Who cares that 32,000,000 people saw your stupid video? It didn’t market you or your business in a tangible, useful way.

Marketers are obsessed with free media, and, as is often the case, we blow it in our rush to get our share. We create content that is hampered or selfish or boring. Or we create something completely viral that doesn’t do any marketing at all.

As the work of getting your brand (whether personal or business) in front of people becomes more important, we believe that branding every link you ever send can be a great way to enhance your marketing efforts.

Most people copy and paste to retweet, or simply forward emails they think interesting, engaging or funny. Your Smubbed links are highly likely to be forwarded or retweeted right along their way. In one simple step, you’re creating the opportunity to extend and market your brand by simply Smubbing web content of interest to you.

I’m sitting in my home office in Portland, Oregon, watching the snow gracefully fall in front of the window. Its been snowing here all week, an odd occurrance. We’re not exactly set up for snow events, so weird things happen:

• The local news starts at 4:00 a.m. and goes ’til 10:00 a.m., then returns at 4:00 p.m. ’til 7:30 p.m.
• School districts cancel classes two days in advance, then hope the snow hits
• Or, school districts open for the day, but close two hours later…
• Stores are overrun with people stocking up on bread and milk

It seems no one here knows how to handle the snow. Few of us (unless we’re skiers) have snow tires or chains, and very few of us grew up understanding how to drive in the snow. (No one wants me out on the streets this week!)

So what’s happening all over town, all over the NorthWest, and in other areas (I’m imagining in Las Vegas and Southern California), people unused to the snow have a reprieve from “normalcy.”

• We stock up on bread and milk, and get the urge to bake… (http://smub.it/jlj/crunchcookies)

Smub to Great Cookie Recipe

• We set up informal networks to share information about weather conditions around town… like Portland’s #pdxtst (Portland Twitter storm trackers) (http://smub.it/jlj/pdxtst)

Smub of #pdxtst Tweets

• …And we do an awful lot of picture taking and sharing… (http://smub.it/jlj/flickr)

Smub shortcut to Flickr photostream

And we share and share and share… on our blogs, on Facebook, via Twitter, in email and on the phone.

Perhaps it’s the holiday season, perhaps it’s the snow. But people are connecting and sharing experiences like never before. It’s a joy to watch and participate.

I like to Smub in the snow… you?

I was delighted yesterday to make my first Smub and find that our engineering team had unveiled one of my favorite new features - counting “hits.”

Smub counts click-thrus as"hits"

As you can see in the right-hand column, you can track the number of clicks on your Smubs whether you share them in email, via Facebook, Twitter, text them, or read them over the phone.

And, in addition to being able to count the hits, you can sort by number of hits (or by date, alphabetically, or by tag):

Smub will sort number of hits

So at the simplest level, you’ll be able to see which Smubs are your most popular. And you can even test whether Smubs in Twitter are more clicked on than Smubs on your Facebook page. Or whether a Smub in an email worked to get people clicking…

Which of your Smubs are the most viral? Now you’ll know - and you just might be surprised!

Most people ‘get’ the notion of grabbing a URL and renaming it (which is the new aha! we’re able to provide in the realm of shrinking links) to a personally memorable link. The simultaneous “save” (to a personal bookmark page) is a bonus - especially for those of us who can’t always remember exactly what we’ve named or where we’ve stored something.

When you register for a Smub account, you’re automatically saving (or bookmarking) your Smubs in a private area on Smub’s server. That gives you several cool advantages:

• You can gain access to your Smubs from any browser. So when you’re visiting mom and dad for Thanksgiving, you can log in from the ancient 386 that’s humming under the desk, keeping your dad’s legs toasty as he works around the 65 pound monitor (look! an old CRT!) on top of his desk. (That is, if the operating system supports Firefox 2 or 3, and/or IE 6,7 or 8.)
• It’s a private bookmark page, so you can save not only public Smubs, but you can store your personal pages online (for access from mom and dad’s, or anywhere you’re connected to a browser) - I have a “bank” and plenty of email account/Baseline account Smubs already. What’s great about that is that I can truly be bookmark free on my iPhone (in case I lose it) and still have access to my personal pages when I’m on the road.
• You can sort your Smubs by tag, by date, or alphabetically, so it’s easy to find a needle in a haystack even when you become a prolific “Smubber.” (Believe me, I’ve come to appreciate that capability for sure.)

As much as I can get lost in the joy of personalizing and sharing links, and sharing Smubs through the toolbar, I’ve found great solace in relying on Smub to save and sort my links, too.

And in helping me be truly, truly mobile, yet connected.

Bookmarked Smubs are easily searched, sorted