Does anyone know why they haven't implemented the ability to insert good old-fashioned hyperlinks? Links embedded in the text would save some characters in the message and improve legibility.
yes but is it worth the illegibility and extra step of shortening? how many of those sms recipients make use of the link by retying it in a browser? if there is much of a use case why not have special handling for it?
Link shortening on Twitter only makes sense when it is provided by third-parties (to fit inside Twitter's length restrictions) or when tweets are being consumed over SMS (due to SMS length limits). If Twitter only shortens links when sending them through an SMS gateway, then this will be a very positive change over what 3rd-parties are able to provide. However, if Twitter's link shortening service continues to inconvenience all users just so they can try to build an analytics business around that inconvenience, then that will be a clear sign that Twitter isn't interested in optimizing the user experience--which they claimed was the reason for taking over the roles currently being occupied by 3rd-party software and services.
Also, if they're goal is top optimize UX then they'll need a very short domain name like 3.ly or j.mp. The domains suggested in this article don't make any sense for a link shortener since they're twice as long as necessary.
Why would they foster such a strong ecosystem of applications only to stab them in the back? I think purchasing existing third party apps to fill these holes would make more sense both in terms of fostering less ill will the community and getting better apps than they can likely build internall.
Edit: other posts* state that Twitter has not yet decided if it will use an existing URL shorter or build out its own.
Unfair question: I'm a developer so I would very likely to build my own :) But from a business perspective I would definitely consider buying it; Bitly in particular has a lot of valuable technology that Twitter could monetize on.
Bitly seems to be the default in these discussions and it's clearly the market leader, but there are other companies to consider. I think even starting discussions with another company would force Bitly's asking price down considerably. They may talk about how Twitter is _only_ 30% to 40%* of their traffic, but no business wants to lose those kind of numbers.
Really? I mean to me, it seems like Twitter is really holding all the cards here.
Unfortunately, it seems like an acquisition of Bitly would really amount to charity because if they wanted, they could easily come out with their own competing service which would likely be adopted simply because it's easier to use. Presumably it would be right there on your twitter page or better yet, automatic.
Would you buy it if it was over valued? If Google and Twitter really considered acquiring bit.ly, they must have arrived at the same conclusion at the end of their due diligence that it just wan't worth it. Running the numbers for these types of deals isn't rocket science and if something costs too much, you're not going to buy it.
This is my big concern with the current trend of turning websites into platforms. Any share-cropped idea that would be profitable to do in-house and is in line with the business goals will eventually be done in-house.
Good point, however bit.ly has a good customer base for a very simple product. Besides, I imagine that Twitter will have an api for their shortener + analytics, so bit.ly can still integrate.
Also, bit.ly can make a play to service multiple social networks.
Also, bit.ly can make a play to service multiple social networks.
Is there a rich ecosystem of social networks who have all made the same design flaw that Twitter did, fixing which is bit.ly's only reason for existing? And did the social networks in this rich ecosystem all decline to fix the problem for themselves despite the fact that it can be hammered out by a junior engineer in an afternoon?
They will die, as simple as that. Bit.ly was a short-sighted, stupid investment. I mean they took $2m in VC a year ago, and now another $1.5m in debt? To build a hash of urls, an ACL system, and some metrics?
If only there were an exchange on which we could sell short stupid, private companies.
Twitter is a business. One that is potentially on the same scale of bad investments like Napster or Friendster. At some point they're going to need to focus on features that will make them revenue, and they'll start looking at the "ecosystem" of 3rd party apps, figure out which ones are low-hanging fruit, and harvest.
An intern? The entire bit.ly team doesn't even amount to one single intern, because they clearly needed more than that to build this service at scale. Cmon, seriously?
Besides, why would Twitter want bit.ly's thousands of corporate clients who have custom shortened domains. You know, like the one Amazon announced today? Bit.ly has enormous traction--that's why Twitter would want to buy them. Now, why they didn't buy them is anyone's guess, but it certainly isn't because they could "have an intern write their own URL shortening service in an afternoon."
