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bit.ly posts

Filed under: Microblogging

Twitter continues quest for global domination, adds media sharing to Bit.ly


Bit.ly has added a handy new feature this morning. While it's being reported elsewhere as "file uploading," a more accurate description is media sharing.

The added kung fu is provided by yFrog -- which will no doubt get the rumor mill buzzing about Twitter taking their new funding and snatching up Imageshack, who own yFrog.

Submit a supported file - jpg, png, gif, bmp, tiff, swf, flv, pdf, mp4, mov, or avi - and bit.ly automatically creates a shortened URL and provides the un-altered yFrog link. As with all bit.ly links, realtime stat tracking is provided on your media uploads.

So why upload to yFrog this way instead of using the direct route? As Digital Inspiration's Amit Agarwal points out this is a way to sidestep yFrog's requirement that you log in via Twitter. Files submitted via bit.ly just get hosted and receive a link, no sign-in required.

Update : Yah, so, the title of this post would tend to indicate Twitter is in control of Bit.ly. While they're totally BFFs, and we see them hanging out together after school and bit.ly totally has Twitter's letter jacket and stuff, Twitter doesn't actually own bit.ly, uh, yet. That's probably more their mistake than ours. Anyway, if you were misled by this title, we apologize. Carry on.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, Open Source

Open source MURLS submits links to multiple shorteners

Still concerned about whether or not your favorite URL shortening service is going to go belly-up and leave you with a pile of broken links? Hedge your bets with MURLS.

The tiny, portable application is plugged in to 28 different services including popular ones like bit.ly, tr.im, is.gd, and tinyurl. Each shortener is selectable in the MURLS options screen, so you can create as few or as many truncated links as you please.

Just double-click any URL in the list view and it's copied to your clipboard for easy pasting into Twitter updates or anywhere else you need to send abbreviated links. By default, the app sorts created links by length - shortest links first.

MURLS can definitely be a useful little app for link sharer -- I just hope this doesn't lead to Twitter updates with a dozen shortened links crammed into the 140.

Filed under: Utilities, Web services

J.mp is Bit.ly in new, shorter clothes

Bit.ly dominates the URL shortener market due to its position as the default URL shortener on Twitter, but its features also measure up well against competitors. One area where Bit.ly loses out, though, is in the length of its base URL. Bit.ly is one more character than tr.im or ow.ly and two more than u.nu. Bit.ly is addressing that (relatively small) weakness by introducing j.mp, which is just a shorter version of the Bit.ly everyone already uses.

J.mp has everything Bit.ly has, except the slot as Twitter default. Link tracking, history and user accounts can all be carried over from Bit.ly just by logging into J.mp with the same username and password. In fact, the two services are so connected that every Bit.ly link can be changed into a J.mp link, just by changing the base URL. If you really need those two extra characters on Twitter, you should definitely give J.mp a shot.

[via Mashable]

Filed under: Business, Utilities, Web services, Open Source

Tr.im goes community-owned, takes shot at Bit.ly

The drama around URL shorteners doesn't appear to be ending any time soon. Here's a quick recap, for those who haven't been following:
  • Tr.im, the fourth most popular URL shortening service, shut down because of the insurmountable advantage its competitor, Bit.ly, gets as a result of being the default URL shrinker on Twitter.
  • A couple of days later, Tr.im was back, still angry about the perceived Bit.ly monopoly, but ready to continue operations or sell to someone who would.
  • According to Tr.im, Bit.ly offered Tr.im $10,000 for its domain name and all of its links. Tr.im said no to this and other reported offers.
  • Meanwhile, Bit.ly joined a coalition of similar services, called 301works, to create an archive of shortlinks, in case a shutdown like Tr.im's should happen again in the future.
That brings us up to today, and Tr.im's announcement that it's going to be community-owned. By positioning Tr.im as the people's URL shortener, the site's operator, Eric Woodward, hopes to achieve a large enough market share that Tr.im's collection of links can be a meaningful (and open source) data set for analysts. Tr.im has split off from parent company Nambu, and Woodward has agreed to personally cover any shortfall in Tr.im's operating costs.

In his blog post announcing the community-owned model, Woodward criticizes the 301works group as a Bit.ly publicity stunt that will be ineffective in solving the dead link problem. He's quite clear that Tr.im will not be joining 301works, and that community ownership is a better way to preserve links in the future.

Filed under: Web services

Short URL saga continues: major services form 301works coalition

In the aftermath of the quick shutdown and restart of popular URL shortening service Tr.im, several important players in the short URL market have joined an effort to archive short links in case other services shut down. The coalition is called 301works, and it will be run by Gnip. Other participants include Adjix, awe.sm, betaworks, Cligs, URLizer, and urlShort, and the most popular service going, Bit.ly. Even after giving users a scare that their links might be going away, Tr

301works will function as a directory of shortlinks, so users of the participating services should be able to see the destination of any short link, even if that service stops operating. 301works will be to short links what The Wayback Machine is to dead websites. It's not a guarantee that every link will always resolve, just that you'll be able to see where it pointed when it did.

Filed under: Web services, Microblogging

Tr.im gives up and shuts down

Tr.im, the popular URL shortener owned by Nambu, was apparently not popular enough for the company to see any future in it. Tr.im is shutting down, and links will redirect properly until at least the end of this year. The cost of development and server expansion outweighed the benefits to Tr.im's owners, according to a blog post, because users will never pay for shortURL services.

Nambu also appears to be experience sour grapes over Twitter's decision to use Bit.ly as its default link shortener. The Tr.im blog says that "Twitter has all but sapped us of any last energy to double-down and develop tr.im further. What is the point? With bit.ly the Twitter default, and with us having no inside connection to Twitter, tr.im will lose over the the long-run no matter how good it may or may not be at this moment, or in the future."

It's a crowded field, and some players eventually had to be pushed out, but it's a shame to see Tr.im go. I think it was a better product than Bit.ly in some ways, and I'm all for competition and user choice. Too bad Nambu doesn't feel the same way.

Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Productivity

Bit.ly: URL shortener with built-in tracking

URL-shortening services are plentiful these days, but they're not all equal. There are a few key features we're looking for in our ideal URL-shrinker. We want a bookmarklet, to avoid needless copy-pasting. We want a short base URL for easy Twittering. There's also the ability to custom-name your URLs, so you can tell them apart and they make sense to the people you're sending to. Bit.ly has all of this and more.

Bookmarklet? Check. Short base URL? Check. The only shorter one we've seen is is.gd. Custom naming? Sure thing. But the real kicker is Bit.ly's unique feature: it tracks how many clicks your link gets, and shows you the referrers those clicks are coming from. If someone else has made a different Bit.ly address for that same URL, you can see that, too. Don't be surprised if you see more and more Bit.ly links popping up soon, it might be the best out there right now.

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