URL Shortener wars heat up with Google and Facebook taking on Bit.ly
It seems that everyone is launching a URL shortener to make it easier to share their content through social media. Now the market just got crowded with Google and Facebook launching services and Bit.ly going Pro.
These services take the long links that most sites use and shorten them down for people to share on sites like Twitter, Facebook or instant messaging services. There are literally dozens of these services now and sites like Digg have already started using their own so that users don’t have to go to a third party site.
Bit.ly Pro
Bit.ly has been making a name for itself within the URL shortening space by offering quick and easy analytics. That means that users can keep track of how many people clicked on their link just by adding a plus sign after a Bit.ly URL.
Now Bit.ly is offering URL shortening services to major media sites like Techcrunch and the NY Times. Users will still be able to see analytics. Soon we’ll see short URLs popping up with names like nyti.ms that also include the ability to see analytics along with a full dashboard for the publisher.
Google gets in the game
Google is just joining the battle for short URL dominance with the release of its Google URL Shortener that uses the goo.gl domain. At first this service will be available in Google Toolbar and Feedburner to help users share links.
However this could just be the beginning for Google in terms of URL shortening. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Google include shortened URLs to links within search results.
Facebook wants you
Not to be outdone, Facebook is testing a shortener of its own called fb.me. This could make it easier to share links in status messages and format them to easily broadcast to sites like Twitter.
This will also make it easier to share Facebook links on mobile devices. Long links are especially unwieldy on mobile phones’ small screens, so this could prove a useful feature in Facebook’s plan to rule mobile social networking.
Related Posts:
August 27th, 2011
Id like to thank you for that efforts you might have produced in writing this article. Im hoping the exact same very best operate from you within the future as well. Actually your inventive writing abilities has inspired me to start my personal BlogEngine weblog now.