Bit.ly and Twitter — The Popularity Of Link Sharing
During Twitter’s first official conference, Chirp, the CEO of the social network revealed it was creating its own link shortener and dumping the bit.ly shortener it had made so popular. The CEO of bit.ly, John Borthwick, wasn’t too concerned.
Bit.ly Not Official, But Still a Favorite
Even prior to the network promoting the use of the link shortening tool, it made up for 5% of all link encodes and has since fallen to just 1%, noted by Tech Crunch. Even so, this still amounts to 3.4 billion links because many of the desktop and mobile Twitter users still use the shortener. This may also be the reason no one seemed to notice the shortner was dropped by Twitter in December; most of the network’s power users access the site through a platform such as Tweetie or Tweetdeck.
The Ups and Downs Of Link Shorteners
Twitter’s move into areas previously filled by other applications has left developers disgruntled. How do they know the applications they build next will not be taken over by the social network? With the introduction of promoted tweets and commercial accounts, Twitter will certainly have the money to do it.
On the upside, the numbers released by bit.ly is an indication of exactly how popular link sharing has become. Therefore, the easier business owners can make it for visitors to share their content, the more likely it is to be shared, read, and enjoyed.
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March 3rd, 2011 at 2:46 pm
I recently approached several business contacts and customers and asked what their thoughts were re link shorteners.
About 50% said they would not respond to a shortened URL as they felt that maybe it could not be trusted. All said that they prefered to see where they were going to be taken when the link was clicked.
Does anyone have a thought on this and what would your comments be on utilizing a shortened URL?
March 7th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
bit.ly is an easy to use shortening tool with just two clicks. This is good for affiliate marketers who surely will want to disguise their affiliate link. If twitter is coming out with a shortening tool, they should make sure its better than bit.ly
March 14th, 2011 at 8:57 am
I love using bit.ly on twitter.
April 8th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
I have always used bit.ly and I noticed immediately that twitter didn’t work with it.
April 9th, 2011 at 12:50 am
There will always be room for new URL shortening services. As preferred suffixes are used up, the only solution is a new service. Services that choose random characters rather than letting me choose the character string I want are far less desirable to me.
I’ve also read that goo.gl URL’s are known to disappear. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
April 9th, 2011 at 3:47 am
bit.ly is the most popular and user friendly url shortner i ever listened. and using it is very good in twitter and fb post and other also.
April 16th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Most of user have used bit.ly as their url shortener service.
Thanks for sharing this info
May 3rd, 2011 at 1:37 am
bitly is very good…cause I tweet a lot on twitter
May 10th, 2011 at 12:24 am
Yea, bit.ly has come into it’s own, for sure. No big loss.
June 18th, 2011 at 12:35 am
Shorteners are both a blessing and a curse. In some cases, marketers use it for their dirty work, while oftentimes it really helps shorten unnecessarily long URLs.
June 25th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
I think twitter should create their own link shortener something like tw.eet for ezample would look and function nicely.
July 29th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
not a big fan of bit.ly, so many other services with additional pluses you can uses
July 29th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
not a big fan of bit.ly, so many other services with additional pluses you can uses
August 1st, 2011 at 3:59 am
Well, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t great news for bit.ly owner.. Current shortener isn’t any better, so I don’t see a reason of that change. Maybe they didn’t want to use shortener that is not owned by Twitter company.
Best,
Aleks
August 16th, 2011 at 6:47 pm
I still use bit.ly a lot either for twitter posts or for my youtube videos.
September 2nd, 2011 at 7:18 pm
bit.ly is still the Daddy od them all.
October 12th, 2011 at 3:47 am
I think it’s preferred because it’s fast, easy and reliable… plus the links never expire!
October 21st, 2011 at 6:38 am
I still like bit.ly the most among all the url shorten services. Unfortunately twitter now has its own such service but many people still use bit.ly as their favorites.
May 2nd, 2012 at 3:27 pm
yes I feel it’s favored since it’s fast, simple with dependable… plus the relations not at all end!Thanks.
May 3rd, 2012 at 3:14 am
If you aim to be successful in the Internet, or if you want to use the Internet to reach a goal, you have to be aware and in full understanding of the term link popularity. This term pertains to a website’s connection to other sites. For instance, if your website has links to other sites and if it is being used by others to post their URL, then you are a winner. The reason for this is that the more popular a website is, the more worthy it is to be linked to others.