Google+ profile URLs are long, cumbersome things. They’d be forgettable if they were memorable in the first place. So what do you do if you want to include a link in your email signature or elsewhere without it looking like crap? Gplus.tois a little web app that’s essentially a link shortening tool, except that it allows you to set the username shown in the URL. All you need is your Google+ ID — the long string of numbers that currently makes the URLs so ugly — and to plug in your name, and you’re good to go....

TLDR:Bump up your home assistant game with video, courtesy of an Amazon Echo Show 5, now more than $40 off its regular price. It’s been a few years — and now, your Amazon Alexa is practically part of the family. You ask her to order stuff and play your music. She keeps you updated on news and the weather. And the kids are constantly asking Alexa probing questions about whether aliens exist or how old Alexa is or if she can rap....

Blink182has a new album available via pre-sale called “Neighborhoods” and has a pretty interesting and unique way to listen to it early. Thanks to aSoundCloudandSimpleGeomashup, you can listen to the new album in your own“Neighborhood”, which is the name of the feature. UsingSimpleGeo‘s GPS technology, it will locate your neighborhood through your browser and drop you in a chat experience withSoundCloud‘s listening technology. It’s a similar listening and chat experience to what you’d find onTurntable....

Not to be confused withFollowgramwhich saw an earlydemise, and has since morphed intoSnapfinch, the latest Instagram third party site to open to the public isFollowgram.me. Along with giving a somewhat limited web-based interface to the community using the iPhone photo-sharing app, the new Followgram also gives you a way to advertise your Instagram account online. The site has two main features which are pretty cool. After authorizing the app, you get a vanity url, consisting of followgram....

With so many apps out there, sometimes a helping hand in picking ou the best can really help. As mentioned in our recent roundup of6 Alternatives to the Android Market,Appsfireis a service that provides recommendations for apps you might like, based on the apps you already have installed and via curated lists from experts and VIP users. Last summer, the Paris-based startuplaunchedsocial recommendations based on your Facebook friends for its iPhone app....