The Rise of the URL Shorteners Bit.ly, TinyURL, Is.gd and LinkBee

The URL shortener. Until recently, this was a niche market left mostly to itself. Who had real use for taking a regular URL and making it smaller just for the sake of a smaller footprint? Not many people

Enter micro blogs. When sites like Twitter, Pownce, Plurk and others started coming along with their 140 character restrictions, this niche market suddenly became all the rage. As micro blogging grew in popularity, so did the services that supported it.

First on the block was TinyURL. TinyURL is now the URL shortener of choice when it comes to Twitter. Twhirl's Twitter application automatically parses your link through TinyURL and creates a shortened version of it for you, right in your post or tweet, for example.

In the world where 140 characters is king, that symbiotic relationship can't last long. TinyURL's shortened URLs are considerably longer than many would like, encroaching on the space of the post to Twitter.

Never fear, where TinyURL fears to tread other URL reduction companies are there to take their place, like Bit.ly, Is.gd and LinkBee. Each of the URL shortening services offers different features other than just making your URLs shorter.

TinyURL upped its game by adding custom url's to the mix, Which immediately caused everyone to start talking up their chosen TinyURL sites, as if laying claim to them or marketing territory. Along came Bit.ly with it's custom tag feature and enhanced social media look to compete.

In appearance, Bit.ly blows TinyURL out of the water. It also wins for ease of use and the tagging feature, though TinyURLs custom link is a nice touch. If you want TinyURL or Bit.ly or the other micro blogging and network possibilities they aren't hard to find and use, just Google "URL reduction" or similar terms to find all of the sites currently offering the URL shortening feature.

The first to monetize the tiny URL (or at least the first that I know of), is new company LinkBee. This company lets you shorten any URL, then cover it in ads. The ads are interstitial ads and hover ads, from what I gather of my very brief stint under the LinkBee umbrella. I have to say that the first time I click a link an have an ad popup will be the last time I click a link.

I don't really see a need for these services beyond what you are doing, and worry that they will mean an increase in spam over all. Do you use URL shorteners outside of Twitter? Share the one that is your preference and why in the comments.