Fun with Short URLs, because size isn’t everything

URL shortening has been around a long time. I’ve been using tinyURL for ages. Recently Twitter switched to using bit.ly as its URL shortening service. I signed up for a bit.ly account the other day and have discovered fun in its statistic tracking. For each short URL it generates, bit.ly provides a page that gives information about the number of clicks, location of the clicker as well as a list of tweets, friendfeed comments and comments from BackType that refer to it.

I am now obsessed with tracking my links and looking at the statistics for other pages. It’s really interesting to see the buzz a page can generate as well as how quickly the clicks are generated. It’s worth signing up and using the sidebar bookmarklet for a bit of real geeky fun.