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By: Sean Dwyer: Blogger. Coder. Media Junkie. » Blog Archive » bit.ly vs del.icio.us

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:23:50 +0000

[...] Unlike a lot of the other URL shortening sites, bit.ly offers some cool additional features if you sign up for an account. It will store all of your recent links and give you a compact URL, but it can also track how many people have clicked on it, and it offers an API and RSS feed for your recent links. While it doesn't allow you to enter tags or any additional information about the links like del.icio.us does (leading to some ugly and/or useless titles for the links), and it doesn't have a full social network built-in as of yet, it can auto-post your links to Twitter and also back up the page you are linking to in case it gets overloaded with traffic or eventually goes away. Some people have suggested that it might have the potential to become the new Digg. [...]

By: Joen

Joen — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:41:29 +0000

Jonas, you’ll like this plugin:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10297

By: Joen

Joen — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:11:36 +0000

Jonas Rabbe: That's what I thought too, but it just seems like such a hassle that you have to go to a separate service just to insert a link. That said, they already do some kind of shortening if you insert a longish link into a message (haven't experimented with it, so I cannot say how that works).

Yeah, Twitter tinyurls links if you paste them. That only works if there's the initial room for the long link, tho, so it's quite useless. Yeah it's a hassle, and I really don't think the URL shortening aspect is the killer app part of bitly. It's the stats and the archiving that's the killer app, and that would work even if the link was something like "bit.ly/->noscope.com".

By: Jonas Rabbe

Jonas Rabbe — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:59:54 +0000

Joen: I believe, however, they're actually working on it. I remember reading something on Daring Fireball about some "rel" attribute showing the real link...

That's what I thought too, but it just seems like such a hassle that you have to go to a separate service just to insert a link. That said, they already do some kind of shortening if you insert a longish link into a message (haven't experimented with it, so I cannot say how that works).

By: Joen

Joen — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:53:14 +0000

It’s a really good point, I agree completely there should be some kind of of transparency as to what people link to.

I believe, however, they’re actually working on it. I remember reading something on Daring Fireball about some “rel” attribute showing the real link…

By: Jonas Rabbe

Jonas Rabbe — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:53:46 +0000

Can't really comment on the link archiving service since I haven't used it, but regarding URL shortening twitter really have to step up to the plate here. I have only been on twitter for about a week, and already I am incredibly annoyed at all the bit.ly, ls.gd, etc. URLs floating around. Before I click a link I would like to know where I will be taken (especially since a URL isn't just a URL anymore), and a shortened URL gives me no hints in that direction. I'm sure they are already debating this at twitter HQ, but it just seems natural since links is one of the fundamental pieces of information people want to share (along with pictures of cats).

By: Nik

Nik — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:25:35 +0000

Really informative article. Convinced me to signup as never really liked delicious’ interface.

By: James John Malcolm

James John Malcolm — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:40:20 +0000

Joen: [..] do some fancy magic that rewarded the first poster of said link, rather than the one that popularized it. If they want to do that.

True, but some twitter-celebrity would still have to tweet that link for it to be popular. If I tweet about your site and Obama about Michael's BinBon site, then Michael is going to get all the love. Digg has that extra step of voting up links that were deemed 4wes0me!11!! instead of just getting the most clicks.

By: Joen

Joen — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:44:28 +0000

Perhaps, but how is that different from Digg? And since Bit.ly actually stores destination URLs, I would imagine they could "group" all identical links together and do some fancy magic that rewarded the first poster of said link, rather than the one that popularized it. If they want to do that.

By: James John Malcolm

James John Malcolm — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:13:31 +0000

But doesn’t it reward links put up by popular users, not popular links?