Why I Use Bit.ly and Wish You Did Too
Until twitter came along I didn’t have much use for services that shorted web addresses. I quickly learned how useful they are, even beyond twitter. I saw many people on twitter were using bit.ly and decided to check it out. Here’s what I liked right off the bat:
- There is no limit to how many web addresses (URLs) you can shorten
- They offer a bookmarklet reveals a sidebar to shorten and share any page
- It works with multiple twitter accounts
Though I’ve used bit.ly mostly with twitter, I learned it’s power and protection go beyond twitter. Here are a few examples.
Including a bit.ly link in a direct message on twitter (DM), an email, or blog comment gives me insight to the links being followed. This is particularly useful if the link is to somewhere other than a site I own. If I need to follow up, I know the message was opened and the link was followed.
I’ve also found a nifty Chrome extension from bit.ly that goes beyond the bookmarklet and offers even more. Like the bookmarklet the extension will reveal the sidebar but also ads a hover feature. Hovering over a bit.ly link (and a few other types) not only shows the destination of the shortened link but also how many clicks link has generated. Hovering over a twitter id will show a snapshot of a persons profile. I can usually decide from the snapshot if I want to follow a link or the person.
Before I had this visibility I followed a short-link about local flooding on twitter and suddenly landed on a fake virus scan site! The spammers targeted the trending topics on twitter to grab traffic. Seeing where a link will go eliminates my biggest fear with following a shortened link. Now I know exactly where the bit.ly link will go anywhere a bit.ly link appears.
I’m recommending bit.ly. Let me know what you think and Consider subscribing.
