Check out our CEO’s reaction to Twitter’s acquisition of Atebits (makers of Tweetie) and the news that they are going to start their own url shortener.

Jared Stauffer’s blog

We have made a few updates to br.st so I wanted to point them out to you and explain a little.

1. Auto-Refresh

This was a big request from people and we are excited to get it added.  Your timeline and searches will now show how many new tweets have been since your last refresh that you can click to refresh.  This is just like the way that Twitter.com works.  We will be adding this to Lists in the next several weeks.

2. Upgraded User Pop-up

When you click on a user’s name in a tweet a pop-up shows you all kinds of info about them.  With this release the pop-up was made more efficient (meaning it should load quicker).  And you can now click on the avatar pic and any @ user name in a tweet to get this pop-up.  In this pop-up you can now also follow, unfollow or mention that person. And the popup now shows br.st specific info like images and files they have recently uploaded.

3. Auto-Focus to Tweet-box

Several of you have mentioned that when you click on Reply or ReTweet (the red and green arrows to the right of the tweet) you had to then actually click in the tweet-box before you could start typing.  This problem also was the cause of the screen scrolling down when you started to type, before you clicked in the tweet-box (this was because your browser uses the space bar as another way to scroll down the page when your cursor is not in an area where you can type). — Well this has been fixed, when you click Reply or ReTweet you can now just start typing.

4. Faster Updating Top-right Bar Stats

You might also notice that each time you post a tweet – your stats (Following, Followers, etc) on the top right get updated.

5. GetSatisfaction Site Link Added

Our Help/Feedback link now goes to http://help.br.st – which is a community support portal.

Thank you again for using br.st!  We hope that you are enjoying the giveaway.  People from all over the world are winning!  Please continue to tell your friends about br.st!

- Jared (@JaredStauffer)

Congratulations to our two Nintendo Wii winners this weekend, @amourchaleur and @cherryontop22!  Thanks for using br.st and telling your friends.  Keep entering, we have 16 Wii systems and 3 MacBooks left to giveaway!

- Jared (@JaredStauffer)

Today we gave away our first MacBook Pro to @brmurray.  A few things to note about the giveaway.

1. The giveaway is *random* – this means that anyone that entered can win, as long as they follow the rules, no matter how new the account is (welcome to those of you new to Twitter) or how many followers a person has.
2. Valid entries for today’s Mac giveaway came from when we launched the giveaway (Nov 25) to Dec 3 midnight GMT (5pm AZ / 7pm EST).
3. The people that have won are all *real* people.  And they are not employees or family members of employees or associates of br.st or Brinkster.
4. The parent company of br.st is Brinkster Communications Corporation, a 10 yr old established company.
5. We set the giveaway to be random, and when it is random you can’t control who wins (as long as they follow the rules).

With that said, here are the things that were fixed or added to br.st today.

1. There is a countdown by the giveaway entry buttons that tells you when the day’s entries reset (reload the page to refresh this).
2. There is now a notice telling you if you are following @brdotst on Twitter on the right side bar (you need to do this to win).
3. We changed the front page when you are not logged in. What do you think?
4. The popup when you click on a twitter user name has been enhanced a lot.  There is also a follow button on it now – so that you can now click on someone and easily follow them.
5. Google maps were not showing up correctly.  The link syntax can be maps.google.com/? or maps.google.com/maps? – this now works.
6. Youtube videos were not showing if they were not behind a short link – this now works as well.
7. Minor alignment change to left align page title for shortened br.st links when they were expanded from a tweet.

What are we still working on right now?

1. Updating following, followers, lists and more – more frequently – like # of tweets each time you tweet.
2. Auto-refresh.
3. Br.st links are showing an error when you try to post them to Facebook, Tweetmeme and probably other places.
4. Adding the “Feedback” tab to the side of the website to link to http://help.br.st.

We hope to have those 3 things fixed for you early next week.  Check out our Get Satisfaction site : http://help.br.st and comment or vote for things you want to see us add/change.

Thanks for using br.st and telling people about it!  We really appreciate it.

Jared (@JaredStauffer)

Congrats again to @MadProgrammer, our first giveaway winner.  He will be enjoying his new Wii that will be sent out tomorrow via FedEx.  I will try to post some pictures of us sending it to him.  And also try to encourage him to post some pictures enjoying it!

Here is what was updated today:

• Changed the way a few things work to improve stability – you should notice this!
• Removed the redundant links on the right side bar, moved the rest of the side nav up for better access.
• Google Maps links should now be correctly expanding and showing.
• YouTube videos should now be showing correctly as well.
• Sending a direct message now does not say it failed when it really worked.

Thanks for being such awesome br.st fans! You rock! See this page for a laugh > http://br.st/20M.

-Jared @JaredStauffer

Congratulations to @MadProgrammer the winner of the first Nintendo Wii in the Br.st 25 Days of Christmas Giveaway.

Remember, all entries for the Wii are reset as of today for the drawing tomorrow.  You have to enter again every day for the Wii giveaway and every week for the Mac giveaway!

Thanks for helping to spread the word about br.st! -Jared @JaredStauffer

So, some of you didn’t want to post our previous tweet giveaway entry because it felt like spam.  And some of you are creating/using Twitter accounts that are new or have no followers (Santa is going to put you on his naughty list).  Well, we understand, and agree, and have made the following changes:

To enter the giveaway:

1. Log in to br.st.
2. To enter the Nintendo Wii giveaway, post a tweet containing: “http://br.st #wiigiveaway”. To enter the Apple MacBook Pro giveaway, post a tweet containing: “http://br.st #macgiveaway”.
   Or upload an image or file using br.st, then post a tweet with the br.st link to the uploaded image or file. This will give you one (1) entry in to both the Wii and MacBook giveaway.
3. Remember the tweets must be done from the br.st web-based Twitter client.
4. AND don’t forget that you need to re-enter the contest every day for the Wii and every week for the MacBook.

The new smaller required text, along with you posting something unique in your post, should help those contest entry tweets from feeling like spam.  AND you can also just post an image/file using br.st and tweet about it to enter – and this way gets you an entry to both giveaways, AND there is no way that can come across as spam!

So there you have it, multiple ways to enter, and one that does not even smell like spam.

All previous entries will be counted.  No worries!  Are you getting excited for the first giveaway tomorrow… we definitely are!  Tuesday’s winner will be announced at 7:00 PM UTC / 12:00 PM Arizona / 2:00 PM EST.

Thanks for telling your friends and followers about br.st! -Jared @JaredStauffer

We will be changing what you have to tweet in order enter the giveaway tomorrow (on Monday).

No worries, all entries up to that point will count.

We recognize that some users feel that the giveaway entry tweets, due to the content and volume, are coming across a little “spammy”,  so we are going to try and do something about that. 

Big thanks to all of you that are tweeting from br.st and telling your friends about the new way to experience Twitter, there are too many of you to name – but we appeciate it!

We are excited about the first Wii giveaway on Tuesday – results will be here on the bottom of the page.  Remember we will be notifying the winner via direct message on Twitter – so you need to follow @brdotst so we can send that message.

Back with the update tomorrow. -Jared @JaredStauffer

Other than the huge giveaway that we announced today, we added the following features:

• New Tweetie iPhone app integration support.  See the FAQs page for details.
• New bookmarklets support.  See the FAQs page for details on this as well.

Happy Thanksgiving!  We will be announcing out first Wii giveaway on Tuesday, December 1st.  And we should be releasing auto-refresh and updating the pop-up box when you click on the users name in a tweet.

Have a great weekend. -Jared @jaredstauffer

Announcing the Br.st 25 Days of Christmas Giveaway!

Last week we launched br.st.  We worked hard to make sure it was the best place to experience Twitter on the net.  We did not get the press coverage we anticipated.  So, to get the word out we decided instead of buying advertising we would do a giveaway contest and give the money in the form of prizes to our users.

We are giving away 21 Nintendo Wii game systems every day (except Fridays) from December 1st through December 24th.  AND we are giving away 4 MacBook Pros (13 inch) every Friday in December.

It is pretty simple to enter: login to br.st, click the Wii or MacBook button on the right sidebar, submit the tweet, and you are entered!  You can enter each giveaway up to five (5) times per day.  And you have to re-enter the contest every day for the Nintendo Wii and every week for the MacBook Pro.

Read the main giveaway page, the FAQs, and the rules.  Here’s to hoping you win!