A few years back, I found the iPhone app Runmeter. It keeps getting better, too, and is still one of the best $5 I ever spent. Very cool app. When you finish a run, skate or walk, it sends you a j.mp short link to a Google map of your exercise with all the stats it captured via GPS.
As a web developer interested in link shortening services, I instantly signed up to use j.mp to shorten my links.
One of the best things about the j.mp link shortening service was the j.mp sidebar, a Javascript bookmarklet that creates a side panel over whatever site you’re on that allows you to use the j.mp shortening service without leaving the page you’re on. It was elegant, easy and just perfect for my needs.
Even though around September of 2009 bit.ly encouraged their users to switch to j.mp to make their URLs even shorter, they have now appeared to have tabled the j.mp brand along with the excellent j.mp sidebar. This wouldn’t be a big deal if the new bit.ly services were the same or better, but they’re far from it. The new bit marker is annoying and takes five times longer to shorten a link, tries to integrate with sharing sites for you and lots of other annoyances.
So they deprecated the j.mp sidebar, which as of the time of this writing is still working, but you cannot find it anywhere on the web! So frustrating.
To combat this problem, here are some instructions below — just sign up for bit.ly if you don’t already have an account, and follow the steps below.
bit.ly j.mp sidebar bookmarklet
Drag this link to your browser’s bookmark toolbar
j.mp sidebar
bit.ly j.mp sidebar manual creation method
1. Create a new blank bookmark in your bookmark toolbar folder and name it j.mp sidebar (or bit.ly sidebar if you prefer)
2. Paste in the following for the URL
Enjoy!
