Why not merge Tr.im and bit.ly? Both are great, but I must admit that Tr.im is definitely a shorter and simpler URL.
william lai
· 4 months ago
I'd pay for having my tr.im URL continued on bit.ly!
BethWellington
· 4 months ago
For those who never used it, but are commenting here, tr.im had a much better user interface that let one store the custom urls and recorded hits. I found the bit.ly interface unwieldy by comparison. That was the reason I switched, not a one character shorter url. BTW, I saw no hits of my bit.ly urls even when I shared them. Such was not the case w. tr.im.
Will Robertson
· 4 months ago
Do you really think that has to do with the shortener you used and not the content you were sharing?
Leanne
· 4 months ago
I've seen the same thing - and agree with Beth. I am sad to see tr.im go and use bit.ly because it's preferred by Twitter. I do not find the interface at all informative, and it does not record data nearly as well.
BethWellington
· 4 months ago
The content I was sharing was consistent. Can't explain the difference. Glad to see that tr.im is back and will transform to open source, community owned http://tr.im/RWW_trim_reopens
davideldridge
· 4 months ago
I savor the shorter urls that tr.im produced (if only by a byte). I think the name was apt as well. http://u.nu is a shorter but less obvious choice. I would love to continue to use tr.im urls and would particularly like to see their user interface continue. They tied in well with tweetdeck (like bit.ly and others) and gave me the ability to control my urls even after the fact without a EULA like I found here. I don't mean to be thankless, and I am sure I am part of some obscure minority, but I hate long EULAs. So tr.im was a good choice all the way around.
bpm140
· 4 months ago
John -- Gnip already has the infrastructure to make this happen and we would be happy to make it available for the community for free. Together, we could get this service up in running in days, not weeks.
I'll reach out to you and Andy via email as well.
Eric Marcoullier CEO, Gnip
Will Robertson
· 4 months ago
I never used tr.im, but I must admit, they have a great domain name for URL shortening.
JimBK
· 4 months ago
This is not about the post exactlty:
The number of clicks on my links have not been showing up on my bit.ly home page for a week now, but I can get them if I click on Info.
Any ideas?
Piepiepie
· 4 months ago
Um it's clear the tr.im guys were probably pissed off about Twitter's habit of playing "unofficial" favorites, and didn't want to give bit.ly any more advantages than you already have now.
livejamie
· 4 months ago
I used tr.im over bit.ly because it was a character shorter.
Remember: for @BethWillington @willwnet - you can see the url of any bit.ly by simply appending the plus sign at the end - which will take you to the info page for that Bit.ly. More on that in our FAQ: Bit.ly FAQ: http://bit.ly/pages/faq/
Andrys
· 4 months ago
tr.im custom-url recording sounds good. The one thing I keep missing on yours is the basic ability to see according to my custom name for the url - the English word - which helps me remember what the URL means for my use of it (the header of the original may not have that much meaning). I have to keep translating between a text file and your report I keep so I can see what your reports mean for my purposes.
It's clear you do a lot of good things since you're tracking everyone using the same basic -news- url, say, but I think most of us are most interested in what's happening when we recommend something and the custom name is extremely important for that. I spend 2 to 3 times the amount of time trying to translate your reports as a result.
xrl.us is one I used that is actually headed by custom url in reports but they don't give as much usage info. I changed to bit.ly because their reports weren't working for me but now they are.
Could you please give us custom-name in reports so that I can stick with you, since you obviously do a lot of good work otherwise? From what I've seen, your click histories match other stats I get from statcounter so that's great. (Just because we share a link doesn't mean people click on it.)
One other request: Smaller fonts and more within a report would be great. Right now the report fonts are huge and there's unnecessary page-turning involved to see more info.
Thanks for what is obviously excellent tracking work.
RexDixon
· 4 months ago
Custom url's are due to be displayed soon. If you read our Uservoice Suggestions forums, you'll probably be more up to date as far as where engineering stands on any of the great suggestions we have received from our Bit.ly community.
Uservoice Suggestions: http://bit.ly/pvNq Uservoice Ask And Answer: http://bit.ly/13qnK
Andrys
· 4 months ago
Thanks, Rex. Good news !
Could you make the Uservoice Suggestions more easily findable on the home page? I looked for it and didn't find it. May have not looked hard enough but it'd be great if something clear was visible. I did find it once and you folks are very responsive, so thanks.
- Andrys
RexDixon
· 4 months ago
Thanks for that suggestion! :) Hopefully the engineers who do the web design will see this.
Andrys
· 4 months ago
Rex, I went to Suggestions and saw the two threads about custom links (I had written in both of them).
Both of them say only "Under Review" which is what they said months ago.
SO I'm glad you said here they'll be displayed soon!
- Andrys
RexDixon
· 4 months ago
Yes, custom url's has been a big issue of displaying vs not displaying them, and hopefully in a soon to be live release they will be there. We appreciate the patience everyone has had with us as a whole as we grow bigger!
Andrys
· 4 months ago
Good work getting the maintenance done early tonight too. And all the numbers look good. Thanks for the quick responses here. I'll be quiet now! :-)
RexDixon
· 4 months ago
We'd rather you as well as the rest of the Bit.ly community be VOCAL and NOT quiet! That's the only way WE can become a BETTER service. We won't get there if the community remains quiet.
egordin
· 4 months ago
Could you guys at bit.ly create something to export our tr.im urls and move them to bit.ly - maybe not all - just the top 20 or something - tr.im's API is still around, but I'm not sure you can get access to something like that with it. Is that possible? Would be awesome
daryn
· 4 months ago
I think what you do is setup 301works as a URL shortener accreditation board, similar to ICANN in the domain name space. Since shortening isn't regulated, it would be voluntary, but hopefully twitter clients/users/etc would only use the services that were accredited.
Part of the membership process would be agreeing to data escrow, whether centralized, or independent but audited escrow service. This is basically what ICANN did with RDE, to mitigate risk if a registrar goes out of business, which, since many people use their registrar for dns/url-forwarding, is really the same issue as with a shortening service.
(by the way, i can also put you in touch with someone with a shorter url than tr.im if you're interested)
ryan
· 4 months ago
Maybe Twitter should allow like Twitter apps the ability to choose your short URL service!
Get some competition and spur more innovation in this area. If they do this then all the short services need to be apart of a a 301work type coalition.
Would bit.ly welcome such a move?
aweissman
· 4 months ago
Twitter allows a user to use whatever url shortener a user wants.
mitaj
· 4 months ago
It seems to me Twitter has created a fairly considerable problem on the Internet, inadvertedly of course. Tr.im goes out of business, and when the others follow suit rotten link future awaits.
On the other hand, there are rarely any decent links people share via Twitter so it could be for the better.
lissismore
· 4 months ago
John,
Apstrata has a Cloud database that would be perfect for this use. We would work together with you to make this happen. Will contact you directly.
Michael Liss VP Marketing Apstrata
chrisday
· 4 months ago
Absolutely believe that regulation is needed here, otherwise everyone is just going to have to roll their own URL shortener to avoid this situation in the future. That will likely not work out well for anyone.
The concept of invalidating all historical tr.im links is a complete disaster and will leave consumers very weary of such services in the future. I for one would feel pretty annoyed knowing that my historical tweets (and all the "hard work" that went into them) have essentially been orphaned permanently. Maybe Twitter can stand up and buy the tr.im name/URL database back for the sake of a contiguous history?
Why doesn't Bit.ly buy out tr.im and merge the urls? You can obviously offer even much shorter urls to your existing users and tr.im user's links will be preserved.
gadgets
· 4 months ago
Given bit.ly's close relationship with Twitter, especially as it shares some investors from what I hear, here's what I think would be great. 1) Twitter acquire bit.ly and tr.im (or at least, bit.ly buy tr.im) 2) Archive the bit.ly links and switch to tr.im thereafter. 3) Use the bit.ly back end but with the tr.im name. 4) Tie it in close to the Twitter service, making it essentially an extension of a 140 character tweet, adding lots of extra features while maintaining backwards compatibility with SMS and older Twitter clients. 5) Regardless what someone wants to include in their tweet, they'd only ever need a single tr.im link. Even if sharing multiple URLS for example. 6) Extra features could include: multiple urls, each with optional comment/label, room to type more text (extension to 140 char tweet), media (pics, audio clips, videos), polls (great for crowd sourcing) 7) Provide an API (maybe XML-based) so Twitter clients can make sense of all aforementioned features and integrate them right into the app. 8) Users of SMS and older Twitter clients can just use the tr.im link in the tweet to visit a webpage showing the extra info. Could have advertising on this page too which is one plus over the current lot of URL shortener services.
kstudent
· 4 months ago
I agree on many points. I for a very long time used and loved tr.im not just for the shortness, but the actual relation to what the service did. I think that Twitter would be smart to buy the service and use it and bit.ly as their "default" shortners, even if as you said by using the bit.ly backend and the tr.im name. I just hate that it seems a great idea and site that someone put a lot of hard work into all is going down because of some monopoly that one service has over another.
JW_00000
· 4 months ago
I was wondering, do you guys have some sort of business plan preventing the same thing from happening to bit.ly? I mean, if tomorrow Twitter decides to give up the 140 character limit, will bit.ly continue to exist?
tim
· 4 months ago
Hey John, Did you hear about http://permanize.appspot.com/ ? It's archiving all (public ?) shortened urls and make them available for all to download. Seems like a similar idea to your 301works project, only it is pulling data instead of having them pushed. I welcome your initiative, and hope that other urls shortener will see how this can benefit them all.
Andrys
· 4 months ago
Nice idea. But the form, which has a header for a "DOWLOAD" area, doesn't help instill confidence in what it will do. The form header says "permanize.org" which is in Germany and the created-date is June 23 '09 with an expiration date in only 1-year from that.
appspot.com just goes to google's dns-admin servers near where I am.
Do you know much more about them?
banglabook
· 4 months ago
I just checked tr.im .......... looks same .... to me..... but there is some difference ..... check................
tr.im url looks small, 2 digit sorter than Bit.ly.......................
m i right........?
Andrys
· 4 months ago
tr.im's 4-letter link-sequence 'wFob' indicates they didn't have as many people using the service and never had to go to 5-6 letters as bit.ly and tiny.url have had to.
tinyurl has been around a lot longer than bit.ly. Problem is, tinyurl utilizes a couple more characters than bit.ly, and doesn't provide logging (well, bit.ly's logging is dead now, so...)
Serr8d
· 4 months ago
Ummm...what's happened to your history reports, guys? They've been missing for over a week.
Less worrying about a possible competitor; it's time to worry about your own barnyard, and the escaping cattle..
Best,
Serr
toddml
· 4 months ago
The history reports haven't gone anywhere. Email support if you're running into problems, and we'll take a look.
Thanks!
Serr8d
· 4 months ago
See JimBK's comment above, 4 days ago...
This is not about the post exactlty:
The number of clicks on my links have not been showing up on my bit.ly home page for a week now, but I can get them if I click on Info.
Any ideas?
Seems I'm not the only person having problems.
I haven't changed a thing; but there is no history. I see 'loading' then, nothing more. Unlike JimBK, I don't have the 'info' link available; it's greyed out.
Leave a link for the support e-mail, if you would.
Thanks~!
toddml
· 4 months ago
the support email is simply support@bit.ly . You may simply have a cache problem. Try flushing your cache and reloading the page.
Thanks for the well-reasoned and informative posting. The life of URL shortening companies may be short and often highly competitive lately, but it's great to see someone thinking about - and honestly trying to create, in a fair and open manner - some form of permanence for the ephemera of shortened links.
Good luck with 301works, I hope you can find some other supporters - especially if you can work with a nonprofit, to ensure it's managed fairly for any sizeable shortening database (including competitors). Sounds like you have a good start.
dubaiproperties
· 3 months ago
i found tr.im from google search ,they have got realy short domain
All Comments
I'll reach out to you and Andy via email as well.
Eric Marcoullier
CEO, Gnip
The number of clicks on my links have not been showing up on my bit.ly home page for a week now, but I can get them if I click on Info.
Any ideas?
I've even been using services like http://u.nu and http://tinyarro.ws because of this reason.
I'd love to see you guys work something out.
I have to keep translating between a text file and your report I keep so I can see what your reports mean for my purposes.
It's clear you do a lot of good things since you're tracking everyone using the same basic -news- url, say, but I think most of us are most interested in what's happening when we recommend something and the custom name is extremely important for that. I spend 2 to 3 times the amount of time trying to translate your reports as a result.
xrl.us is one I used that is actually headed by custom url in reports but they don't give as much usage info. I changed to bit.ly because their reports weren't working for me but now they are.
Could you please give us custom-name in reports so that I can stick with you, since you obviously do a lot of good work otherwise? From what I've seen, your click histories match other stats I get from statcounter so that's great. (Just because we share a link doesn't mean people click on it.)
One other request: Smaller fonts and more within a report would be great. Right now the report fonts are huge and there's unnecessary page-turning involved to see more info.
Thanks for what is obviously excellent tracking work.
Uservoice Suggestions: http://bit.ly/pvNq
Uservoice Ask And Answer: http://bit.ly/13qnK
Could you make the Uservoice Suggestions more easily findable on the home page? I looked for it and didn't find it. May have not looked hard enough but it'd be great if something clear was visible. I did find it once and you folks are very responsive, so thanks.
- Andrys
I went to Suggestions and saw the two threads about custom links (I had written in both of them).
Both of them say only "Under Review" which is what they said months ago.
SO I'm glad you said here they'll be displayed soon!
- Andrys
Part of the membership process would be agreeing to data escrow, whether centralized, or independent but audited escrow service. This is basically what ICANN did with RDE, to mitigate risk if a registrar goes out of business, which, since many people use their registrar for dns/url-forwarding, is really the same issue as with a shortening service.
(by the way, i can also put you in touch with someone with a shorter url than tr.im if you're interested)
Get some competition and spur more innovation in this area. If they do this then all the short services need to be apart of a a 301work type coalition.
Would bit.ly welcome such a move?
On the other hand, there are rarely any decent links people share via Twitter so it could be for the better.
Apstrata has a Cloud database that would be perfect for this use. We would work together with you to make this happen. Will contact you directly.
Michael Liss
VP Marketing
Apstrata
The concept of invalidating all historical tr.im links is a complete disaster and will leave consumers very weary of such services in the future. I for one would feel pretty annoyed knowing that my historical tweets (and all the "hard work" that went into them) have essentially been orphaned permanently. Maybe Twitter can stand up and buy the tr.im name/URL database back for the sake of a contiguous history?
Chris Day
CDot Networks Inc.
http://www.cdot.ca
1) Twitter acquire bit.ly and tr.im (or at least, bit.ly buy tr.im)
2) Archive the bit.ly links and switch to tr.im thereafter.
3) Use the bit.ly back end but with the tr.im name.
4) Tie it in close to the Twitter service, making it essentially an extension of a 140 character tweet, adding lots of extra features while maintaining backwards compatibility with SMS and older Twitter clients.
5) Regardless what someone wants to include in their tweet, they'd only ever need a single tr.im link. Even if sharing multiple URLS for example.
6) Extra features could include: multiple urls, each with optional comment/label, room to type more text (extension to 140 char tweet), media (pics, audio clips, videos), polls (great for crowd sourcing)
7) Provide an API (maybe XML-based) so Twitter clients can make sense of all aforementioned features and integrate them right into the app.
8) Users of SMS and older Twitter clients can just use the tr.im link in the tweet to visit a webpage showing the extra info. Could have advertising on this page too which is one plus over the current lot of URL shortener services.
Did you hear about http://permanize.appspot.com/ ?
It's archiving all (public ?) shortened urls and make them available for all to download.
Seems like a similar idea to your 301works project, only it is pulling data instead of having them pushed. I welcome your initiative, and hope that other urls shortener will see how this can benefit them all.
appspot.com just goes to google's dns-admin servers near where I am.
Do you know much more about them?
My page : http://DeshiBoi.com
Bit.ly url : http://bit.ly/4GEaSI
tr.im url : http://tr.im/wFob
tr.im url looks small, 2 digit sorter than Bit.ly.......................
m i right........?
Andrys
http://bit.ly/kindleworld
http://blog.tr.im/
Also, lots of the comments above seem to assume that URL shortening is only used for Twitter?
http://www.DeshiBoi.com
Less worrying about a possible competitor; it's time to worry about your own barnyard, and the escaping cattle..
Best,
Serr
Thanks!
I haven't changed a thing; but there is no history. I see 'loading' then, nothing more. Unlike JimBK, I don't have the 'info' link available; it's greyed out.
Leave a link for the support e-mail, if you would.
Thanks~!
Good luck with 301works, I hope you can find some other supporters - especially if you can work with a nonprofit, to ensure it's managed fairly for any sizeable shortening database (including competitors). Sounds like you have a good start.
http://www.forextradingadvisory.com