Moments after we heard reports of Facebook’s new URL shortener, Google launched its own service, aptly called goo.gl.
At the moment, its only being used for Google Toolbar and Feedburner. Google just announced the new service as a sharing feature of Toolbar that will let you share a web page directly from Toolbar. The shortener is not a stand alone service and is not available for “broader consumer use.” That is, at least for now. Google assures that its shortener will be stable and secure to help protect users from clicking on malicious sites. And unsurprisingly, Google promises a speedy service for links.
Google’s foray into the URL shortening world isn’t surprising; many platforms are developing their own shorteners in house, such as Digg and Facebook.
Facebook’s new URL shortener is being used for URLs in its mobile interface. It’s unclear if Fb.me will be rolled out to the entire platform.
Of course both Facebook and Google’s venture into this space will threaten bit.ly, the most widely-used URL shortener and default service on Twitter and many Twitter clients. Up until now, bit.ly has moved quickly to become the standard shortener. But the sheer volume of short links which both Facebook and Google can produce could soon overwhelm the number of bit.ly links. It’s the data behind the links, however, which is valuable. Whoever can gather the most unified view of all shortened links will end up winning.
You’ve got to think that Google will eventually roll this out more broadly to extend its reach but it’s unclear at the moment if this will happen. (Although Google’s Matt Cutts Tweets that the restriction to Google’s own products is only “for now,” with the possibility of the service “opening up” in the future).
Hat tip to True Pic for the headline.
why not “g.gl.” Isn’t the shorter the better?
Many tlds have a minimum domain length. I suspect .gl requires the domain to be at least 3 characters long.
long live j.mp I guess : D (it’s part of bit.ly)
I would not bother with it if it was not.
Get ready for Google to replace your Grand Ma.
Competition is everywhere and us, as the ‘consumers’ is having a heck of a benefit out from it. Isn’t that great? Bit.ly is are well aware of the implications of the impending google shortening onslaught, as you can see they are now launching bitly pro to increase their already wonderful features. See the detailed review about this bout: http://bit.ly/google-shortener-vs-bitly-review
+1
Contact me if your project requires a short/special domain name. While j.mp is already taken we have lots of others available!
I once looked into getting a very short International TLD for a project, and the fees and stipulations were astronomical (for me). Not that a few thousand dollars a year (directly to the registrar) is a big expense for a public facing service for one of these companies, but the rules were weird.
I’d suspect Greenland (.gl) would reserve single and double letter domain names for their authority’s use, and handed out to specific domestic companies that they can easily keep eyes on. Even 3 characters are going to be closely guarded.
Yoshua, the .gl (Greenland) TLD doesn’t allow domains to be that short.
Dude, you’re Google, seriously? haha
Yeah…surprised Greenland couldn’t make an exception for Google
They announced the domain before the transaction to acquire Greenland had passed regulatory review.
Do Google find out this domain on http://domai.nr/google ?
For some reason I imagine mass panic at bit.ly’s office… trash cans on fire, people running around screaming. When Google opens this up to the public, there’s no doubt it will take top shortening position.
Uh, no.
The only way bit.ly will be dethroned of its crown is if twitter chooses to use a different shortener as its default.
Which it will when Google acquires Twitter
Or most likely when Twitter will die somewhere next year…
Oh yeah that’s a dream i keep having…and such a good one.
Wish that happens. I want Twitter to be more stable.
I’m thinking if Twitter added a bit.ly shorting window to the service it would out link-cloud all.
google phone + google dns + goo.gl = FAIL (for the end user anyway)
ho.ly
smok.es
Don’t you mean… “Ho.ly Sh.it”
wt.f
wait a second? since when was .f a valid tld? I must not be reading techcrunch enough… wait, the only way I can get more is if techcrunch had a tv station
Wow, ho.ly is a real website – smart pick
Can’t twitter just get rid of the “your url is included in the 140 char limit” and we can be done with these short url services? other than sending a tweet, what purpose do short urls serve to the web surfer?
well, sometimes it’s a little less intruding in places where you can’t edit html. If I want to reply, and I get extremelylongsubdomainname.idontcarewhatproviderihavebecauseiliketohavelongnames.gl/heyijustaddedanotherlongwordintothistodemonstratehowlongadomaincanbe people won’t be all to attracted to click it. Cute little links, make cute little comments
can’t twitter tweak it’s api to include an update and a link? it would save the web from a lot of potential troubles
Won’t work for people receiving tweets as SMS.
not a big loss
Tail wagging the dog there…..
tinyurl.com has been around since 2002. Twitter did not invent the need for shorter and easier URLs. I think a lot of tech magazines jumped on URL shorteners as a way to “embed” usable links into print articles.
bit.ly ju.st g.ot fu.kd
I disagree. unless Google incorporates all the features that bit.ly has, bit.ly still wins. Stuff like stat tracking is pretty important to me.
I feel strange to say this but I agree. bit.ly has, imo, reached critical mass and is here to stay (or get acquired)
That’s what tinyurl said.
+1
+1
+1
+1 and a butter biscuit
It’s already been acquired… by Twitter.
I agree! The realtime and aggregate metrics provided by bit.ly are kick ass.
For sure. What are the odds that google adds statistical analysis to their product? (*cough* http://www.google.com/analytics)
+1
Google Analytics + Goo.gl = Win.
Google has enough reach and enough services where if they default everything to goo.gl short links… and with fb.me rolling theirs out as the default on their platform…
Ok, enough elipses. The huge majority of web users, like 100’s of millions, do not five a fu.kd one way or the other. That’s why these two announcements today are such a big deal – automatic market share.
Ever heard of Google Analytics? Done deal.
I think the bigger news is the Feedburner part, which essentially amounts to a TwitterFeed killer.
yes, I already swiched from Twitter feed to the goo.gl/feedburner integration a a couple of my sites
LOL…. google and fb rolled over and crushed bit.ly.
Serves bit.ly right considering they colluded with twitter to squeeze out url shortners.
Hey Leena,
saw you updated the title of this post after I added my comment. A little attribution would have been nice.
it’s kinda unbelievable that this company was actually funded in the first place. Anyway, short urls are still an unnecessary setback for the integrity of the web.
Ok. So how many of you just tried to go to http://fu.kd to see what was there? Come on, be honest.
Ooooh…you made me look!
Thanks for linking – for once I found the snap.com popup useful!
i think.. google is getting daemon by the day…
facebook.. is not moving into different areas..its stuck with social networking.. it has the potential to become like google…
Every time when I had to copy 200 characters link from google maps I thought that Google needs to shorten their urls. finally
if you need a short URL to a map, try http://mapifier.com/
If you need a short URL to a map, try any short URL service.
This bookmarklet is a great solution until Google makes that change.
http://savanttools.com/crumple-google-map-link.asp
Leena, I did not like the title of the post!.
Actually, I thought the title was really funny.
Good work, Leena. Since this is a blog and not the WSJ, I think it’s a-ok.
i laughed and thought hey kudos to leena. still laughing.
Man, that title is hilarious.
I can’t see any reason to stop using bit.ly for what I need currently, but I suspect it’s not the existing users they need to worry about – it’s the vast bulk of users that will probably never hear about anything other than goo.gl. now…
Seriously, the best title ever. +10 to the editor.
Also, note it’s this line that makes me thing Goo.gl is taking on Bit.ly head-to-head, “Please note that Google may choose to publicly display aggregate and non-personally identifiable statistics about particular shortened links, such as the number of end user clicks.”
Smells a lot like bit.ly.
one of the reasons people loved bitly was because of its advanced statistics service, you could track how many people click on those url’s and where they are from etc.
Given google already has such technology in Analytics, etc. google could beat bitly while on the other hand, google had analytics when they bought feedburner, which was loved thanks to its analytics and monetizing features, which shows the possibility of google buying bitly after failing with its own shortener service, just as it happened with google video / youtube case.
I bet google is doing this to be able to tap into twitter data and facebook is doing this to prevent google (potential bitly buyer) from tapping into its data.
Might actually be good for bit.ly – Someone (Twitter?, $Soft) could be looking to acquire now.
I used the Firefox add on PunyURL to tweet this article.
(And, yes, great title.)
Google url shortener extension for chrome. http://goo.gl/PiyX
“What do we call people we’re angry at? Among other things, cunts, dicks, and assholes. Why don’t we call them elbows or ears? Because there’s nothing wrong with those body parts. Why is it that if something bad happens we say that we’re fucked or screwed or that it sucks? If some part of us didn’t believe there was something wrong with those actions and organs, we wouldn’t use them in these ways; every time we use sex words as expletives, we are reinforcing our own internalized sex-negativity. ”
-Charlie Glickman
once google integrates this into their analytics package it effectively kills bit.ly’s analytics…bit.ly might be able to tell you clicks and location of clickers (etc), but what about after the click occurs? Wtih googles short url service + analytics, you could see the actual activity of the clickers once they hit your site, conversion rates, etc….that in itself would make everyone switch to goo.gl
getclicky.com already does exactly this, and in real time, with its shortener clicky.me. As far as I know, it is currently the only analytics service on the planet to have this functionality (tracking users on your site after they click the shortened link).
bit.ly has nothing to worry about. They are not “fu.kd”. The only thing that would hurt bit.ly is if Twitter chose to use a different URL shortener by default, but I doubt they will. bit.ly is fast and dependable and has decent stats built in to every link. There’s no reason to switch away from them.
Analytics integration. Being able to track how people that click your tweeted links interact with your site (and possibly convert to leads or sales), without generating an explicit tracking URL each time you tweet.
Those saying bit.ly has the safety net of Twitter – pretty much every client in existence lets you choose which shortening service to use. All it takes is for TweetDeck or Tweetie to make goo.gl as the default and it’s over for bit.ly
Wow that sucks, although I feel they will be ok.
I still can’t believe Short URL’s is business? I consider it a feature. Eg in the browser, part of twitter etc.
Michael, I love you and love your site, but this headline and analysis is as fast food content as it gets
Shut up and eat your goddamn cheeseburger.
And then go play poker with George Burns and Michael Jackson.
i don’t know if this is good for business but it is good for google, but more or less seems like a redundent web feature. there’s so much crap online. anyways this just makes the url game more fun. i wonder what they’re going to do next. i don’t think this is going to be an automatic bitly killer, but yeah i don’t think people at that office are cheering this move.
Ahh lovely -
I used to own domain go.gl for my photography site and was considering registering goo.gl just for fun – it was available!
Likely Google would of chase me for that
So I decided to register C.GG – which is even better, lol
Love these short names