Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Short is hot. The simple URL shorterner utilities have gotten a lot of attention — good and bad — as the de facto means to share Web site addresses on services like Twitter. This week, both bit.ly, one of the most popular URL shortener services, and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), made new releases in the area.
Unlike bit.ly, tinyURL and others, the new Google URL Shortener is not a standalone service. Rather, it’s specifically designed as a feature for the Google Toolbar and Feedburner — a content syndication service (blogs, podcasts, etc.) that Google acquired two years ago. Like bit.ly and others, Google’s goo.gl service shrinks the size of long Web addresses into a few characters, making them easier to share, tweet, e-mail and link to with friends and associates.
Google explained in a blog post that the new service will let Feedburner publishers automatically send shortened links to Twitter. URL shorteners have become critical in the world of Twitter, given the 140 character limit the site imposes on each tweet.
Separately, bit.ly announced the beta release of bit.ly Pro. The idea behind the service is to let publishers and bloggers include a bit of their name for easy identification in shortened URLs that point to their sites. So, for example, a bit.ly shortened link to a New York Times article would include “nyti” in the link name.
Shortened URLs have gotten a bit of a black eye over security concerns, with scammers linking users to malicious sites. One of the criticisms of the short URLs is that the random naming mechanism doesn’t give any clue about to the destination site.
Bit.ly pro aims to change that. The initial release is being used by a limited number of large and medium-sized Web sites and bloggers, including AOL, Bing, the New York Times and the Huffington Post.
Bit.ly also announced a new real-time dashboard for publishers designed to provide easy access to traffic information. “It’s a real-time view of how a given publisher’s content is being distributed across networks like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace and services like e-mail, SMS and instant messenger,” bit.ly said in a blog post.
RELATED NEWS AND ANALYSIS
-
Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: Driving Greater Equality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
December 16, 2020
-
AI vs. Machine Learning vs. Deep Learning
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
December 11, 2020
-
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
-
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
-
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
-
Top 10 AIOps Companies
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
-
What is Text Analysis?
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
-
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
-
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
-
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
-
Top 10 Chatbot Platforms
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
-
Finding a Career Path in AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
-
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
-
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
-
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2021
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
-
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
-
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
-
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
-
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
-
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020