As you might have noticed, I like! just got a new home. Spurl.net is the address and I believe I managed exactly 0 minutes of downtime during the switch, so you shouldn’t have experienced any trouble in the meantime.

There are two main reasons for the switch:

• The old URL wasn’t all too easy to tell your friends about – was it?
• The dedicated URL will make any forthcoming upgrades a lot easier.

The name, spurl.net doesn’t mean anything, i.e. the “url” is url for sure, but the meaning of “sp” is up to you – ideas welcomed. On the other hand the name is short, easy to remember and not too many ways you can screw up the spelling of it when you hear it pronounced – all very good qualities. Thanks to Frosti at Sonos for the name.

The logo was made by Egill. I think it is pretty nice. He’s however not to blame for the rest of the spurl.net UI – I made that mess all by myself.

There are several new features introduced with the move:

• You can categorize your spurls and add personal comments to them (use the “Advanced” tab in the “Add” window).
• Quick lists: These lists show the activity at spurl.net in a brief overview, but leave out some of the details found in the older lists.
• I have separated “My spurls”, i.e. what each individual user has spurled, from the other lists, as the usage of that list is obviously quite different.
• You can now click the “Related” icon next to any URL to see other URLs that have also been marked by the same people.
• …and more. I will add details here as the new features are sufficiently tested and documented for your use.

Well, I hope you enjoy the new and improved service. As before, any ideas and comments are welcomed and if you find something you think is a bug, please let me know.

For those of you that were using “I like!” before, I ask you to delete the “I like!” link and replace it with the new one (you will find it on your “My profile” page in spurl.net). Same goes for all RSS feeds and Javascript links. To update them, simply replace “http://mercury.hjalli.com/ilike/” with “http://spurl.net/” in the URLs. Simple – right?

The old links will however work for some time to come, so don’t worry.

Spurl.net is still in development, so expect to see even more new and improved stuff coming soon.

The new Mercury blog will from now on be THE source of information on what is happening with spurl.net, and my Wetware blog will go back to the normal talk on non-traditional computing, engineering and biology.

Thanks once again for using “I like!”. Enjoy spurl.net!

Thanks to all of you that have tested I like! in the past few days.

By the time I post this, it will be almost exactly a week since I introduced the service and I would not have believed the amount of traffic the site has got since.

As a result, the server is sometimes a little slow in response. Usually it works ok, but it is a rising problem. I am in the process of upgrading my hosting server, so bear with me for a few days.

From the numerous emails and blog entries I’ve seen from users (see bottom of post), most people seem to like, I like! (pun very much intended).

Here are answers to a few of the most common questions and comments I’ve seen:

• There is a problem with international characters: Yes I know, it’s being fixed. As a native speaker of Icelandic I surely understand your frustration. Give me a couple of days…
• I want to be able to manage the pages I’ve marked as my bookmarks: That kind of features will be added. Expect the first version of that late next week. When the time comes you will be able to categorize and sort the pages you’ve already marked, so keep “Liking” as you please.
• My top recommendations have no relevance to what I have marked: Actually I’ve been surprised to see how many users have been happy with their recommendations, given that the current recommendation algorithm is only my second version. Even the ones that have given the recommendations bad reviews have still admitted that they found pages that amused them in the recommendations. Keep in mind that the recommendations will improve:
• …as the overall database grows.
• …as you mark more pages you like.
• …as I will further improve the recommendation system.
• I want to be able to add details about the page as I mark it: As it is now, you will have to go the I like! page to add details about a page you have marked. I’m changing this so that you can do this right away when you mark the page. This will however be done so that it will not change the functionality for those that just want to quickly “like” a page and leave it at that. This is actually the next feature update. Hopefully ready by tomorrow.

I have a long list of feature and improvement ideas that I’m going to implement, but at the same time I will implement your good ideas and requirements as well and prioritize in line with the feedback I get, so please keep the comments and suggestions coming. I will evaluate the ideas thoroughly and try to do the best I can (use the comments here, or drop me a line at ilike.hjalli.com (replace first dot with @)). And if you find a bug, please-please let me know.

Thanks again for all the feedback and for using my service.

Here’s what people have been writing about I like!:
– I Like It! – Chew’s News
– I like, un outil de bookmarking avec recommandations – Outils Froids (French)
– I like – Dr. Web Magazin (German)
– I like – Cynical-C Blog
– I like – She=Marmod (Dutch)
– I like – Couchblog
– I like. – The Presurfer (no permalink)
– I Like… – Blog-Fu
– Do You Like? – J-Walk blog
– I like … – NurSo � OderDochSo
– I like – *.*
– I don’t like – Green Gabbro
– It’s called I like – HubLog
– I like! – Library Stuff weblog