http://blockyourex.com/

It’s important to have a little fun once in a while, and that’s exactly what we did when we created the Ex-Blocker.

As we shared about a week ago, it was inspired by a Brooklyn Happy Hour with our friend at Stuff Hipsters Hate, Brenna Ehrlich (who also writes for CNN and Mashable), we created a fun plug in that removes all mentions of that certain someone you never want to see again from search results, blogs, articles, Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else they might pop up.

Everyone has known or has been that one person who can’t just walk away from a breakup, and let’s face it, it’s never easy, the Ex-Blocker just helps us a little further along the way on the path of heartbreak recovery. Since launching via Brenna and Andrea’s Netiquette column at CNN on July 7th and as of midnight 7/22/10, the Ex-Blocker plugin has been downloaded 3,397 and “liked” 1,781 on Facebook. We have also been contacted by numerous radio, print and TV outlets; look for the interviews in the coming days! And before we rattle off some of our favorite clippings, we want to share one last exciting development: Jimmy Fallon mentioned it on his show last night (see 6:06 in this clip on Hulu).

All 59 media hits garnered so far can be found on our Delicious account here; some of the “best of” are included below:

• Dakshana Bascaramurty of The Globe and Mail: “In the age of Web 2.0, purging all traces of a former lover from your life requires a lot more than a clinical procedure. For those who can’t stop themselves from creeping their exes on Facebook, obsessively reading their tweets or Googling them, the fix is in. Washington-based creative group Jess3 launched Ex-Blocker last week.”
• Erica Pearson of The NY Daily News elaborates to the readers: “Firefox and Chrome users can type in the names and social networking usernames of up to five exes and install the blocker, making every image and mention of them disappear. While expunging memories à la Jim Carrey in ”Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” may still be out of reach, the plug-in will eliminate errant Google search results and random postings on friends’ Facebook pages.”
• Tony Payne of Yahoo’s Associated Content jokes a bit: “ (…) it doesn’t actually remove them from the internet and do some kind of magic disappearing act on them, but it does prevent any searches that are done on your computer from including anything to do with your ex. This is a great bonus (I guess) for those shunned partners who can’t get over a breakup, and who feel the need to constantly search for their ex’s profile on Facebook and other social networking sites, to see what they have been up to”.
• Chris Matyszczyk, author of CNET’s Technically Incorrect column (a column title we love, btw): “The Ex-Blocker home page is a little light on how it might actually get rid of those who have caused you pain, grief, or merely bankruptcy of pocket and ideas. However, at the time of writing, it boasts that it is busy removing more than 2,556 exes from the Internet. Which is volunteer work of a truly elevated nature.” · Michael Hines, assistant editor at Trend Hunter boasts:” The Ex-Blocker is a browser plugin that blocks you from looking at or seeing your ex-girlfriend or boyfriend. This has to be one of the most useful plugins of all time.”
• Chris Pirillo, widely-followed internet entrepreneur explains: “Logging in to Facebook and having your ex’s face sitting on top of a message saying “Add as a friend!” might cause scars to rip right off of still-healing wounds. It’s painful to have to look at their name or face every time you click over to a new page, isn’t it? Ex-blocker will help.”
• Castina at Popcrunch says: “Drawing on the popularity of a Firefox tool developed in May to remove all traces of teen star Justin Bieber from the ‘Net, “Ex-Blocker” evaluates web pages, blogs, and social networking profiles and eliminates all mentions of the former object of your affection.”
• Jezebel quips: “But even those old enough to choose their own religion may have wished they could wipe an ex’s name off the face of the earth. And now they can — online, at least.”
• Gizmodo uses a iconic image from the movie the Break-Up — capturing the once-coupled-IRL Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn, when they say: “The Ex-Blocker is a plugin for Firefox and Chrome that literally filters your ex out of the internet for you. Simply feed it their first and last names, their Twitter username, their Facebook profile info and their blog URL, and it takes care of the rest. Sure, photos can slip through the cracks, I’m sure. And you’ll have to set up an email filter yourself if you want to cut off contact completely. But this might just stop you from seeing that picture of the one person who used to love you that would remind you that your time with them was the best days of your life that you will never, ever get back because you are stupid and selfish and fucked up badly in a way that is completely irreparable. And that would be, like, a total downer.”

Written by:
Alix McAlpine | Director of Marketing, JESS3
Leslie Bradshaw | President & Co-founder, JESS3

Tags: ex-blocker, JESS3