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Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Users Not Amused

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Re: Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Users Not Amused

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With delicious being totally dead, I think it is worth having at a new bookmarking service (haven't checked this yet myself).

Delicious isn't completely dead it's owned by the guys who started YouTube and turned into something of a pinterest clone (which is kind of where bookmarking has gone)

I still use it too. I like it, but it seems to be down 1 out of 3 times I try to use it, so let's just say it's 33% dead.

Re: Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Users Not Amused

#33
post #29

1.) Screw link shorteners. When they go bankrupt, which they do frequently, they leave behind millions of completely useless URLs. 2.) Antagonizing your userbase seems like an unwise move in a market where changing providers is so trivially easy. (What's the difference between a bit.ly link and a t.co one?)

Do elaborate on the frequently part.

http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Urlteam

Defunct URL shorteners:

    tr.im
    xs.md
    4url.cc
    litturl.com
    chod.sk - Appears non-incremental, not resolving
    gonext.org - not resolving
    ix.it - Not resolving
    jijr.com - Doesn't appear to be a shortener, now parked
    kissa.be - "Kissa.be url shortener service is shutdown"
    kurl.us - Parked.
    miklos.dk - Doesn't appear guessable: http://miklos.dk/!z7bA6a - "Vi arbejder på sagen..."
    minurl.org - Presently in ERROR 404
    muhlink.com - Not resolving
    myurl.us - cpanel frontend
    1link.in - Website dead
    canurl.com - Website dead
    dwarfurl.com - Website dead/Numeric, appears incremental: http://dwarfurl.com/08041
    easyuri.com - Website dead/Appears hex incremental with last digit random/checksum: http://easyuri.com/1339f , http://easyuri.com/133a3
    go2cut.com - Website dead
    lnkurl.com - Website dead
    minilien.com - Doesn't appear guessable: http://minilien.com/?9nyvwnA0gh - Website dead
    memurl.com - Pronounceable. Broken.
    nyturl.com - NY Times (bonus points for being longer than nyt.com, which they own). Taken by squatters
    digg.com - discontinued - [2]
    u.nu - "The shortest URLs. period." Website dead since at least 1st of october 2010 (http://web.archive.org/web/20100104023208/http://u.nu/)

Re: Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Users Not Amused

#36
post #14
post #8

> "It's the response from the vocal minority who are quick to complain about any change." Who else will complain about bad changes, if not the "vocal minority"? When was the last time somebody appealed to the alleged wisdom of the "silent majority" to support anything worth supporting? Nixon? Falwell? Internet services rely greatly on word of mouth. You need vocal advocates to spread the word. If you alienate your mo…

> When was the last time somebody appealed to the alleged wisdom of the "silent majority" to support anything worth supporting? Nixon? Falwell? Everyone claims that the silent majority supports their position. See Occupy for a recent example. Suggesting that everyone is wrong seems a bit strong.

No, I wasn't suggesting that everyone is wrong. Rather, appealing to the "silent majority" without offering any independent arguments assumes that the majority must be right, which is just as fallacious as assuming that the majority must be wrong.

IIRC the Occupy movement didn't argue that the 99% is right because it's the 99%. Rather, the argument was that there are serious socioeconomic problems that affect as much as 99% of the population. People also tried really hard to mobilize as many ordinary citizens as possible so that the majority would no longer be silent. Contrast that with the usual conservative bullshit about how hard-working citizens are too busy with their own productive lives to participate in protests, which implies that silence is a virtue.

Re: Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Users Not Amused

#37
I was so upset when I got to work this morning and found that not only had the chrome extension changed, the website had changed completely too.

It used to be that I'd click on the chrome extension icon and immediately get a link along with the page title that I could post straight to twitter or facebook. The j.mp/bit.ly homepage was bookmarked in my bookmarks bar and showed me everything I cared about in one place (the link, with another link to copy it, how many clicks on my link, and how many total clicks to that particular article).

I imagine they went "hang on, we're making life waaaay too easy for them" and proceeded to throw up the vomit that is the current homepage. Now to get the shortened link from the extension, I have to click save and them do some other nonsense to retrieve my link.

I'm the worst kind of angry about this ... angry and powerless, because bit.ly is such a part of my online life now (personally and a bunch of apps that I've written use it) that I simply can't do without it ... there's no other decent alternatives, plus I have this weird thing where I think its kind of rude to complain about a free service.

So apart from this, I'm just going to shut up and hope something better comes along so I can jump ship. It happened with delicious (pinboard), so hopefully, it won't be long.

Re: Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Users Not Amused

#39
> As Bitly’s CEO Peter Stern told me, the company anticipated the negative reaction: “It’s the response from the vocal minority who are quick to complain about any change. We put a great deal of thought and effort into making the change as minimal as we could, but we recognize that people don’t like change.”

How disrespectful.

Re: Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Users Not Amused

#40
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do elaborate on the frequently part.

http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Urlteam Defunct URL shorteners: tr.im xs.md 4url.cc litturl.com chod.sk - Appears non-incremental, not resolving gonext.org - not resolving ix.it - Not resolving jijr.com - Doesn't appear to be a shortener, now parked kissa.be - "Kissa.be url shortener service is shutdown" kurl.us - Parked. miklos.dk - Doesn't appear guessable: http://miklos.dk/!z7bA6a - "Vi arbejder på sagen...…

So bit.ly tried to do something about this a while back by helping to found http://archive.org/details/301works
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