bit.ly Review

I highly recommend using this service.

Quick Summary

Many of you may know about bit.ly already. It is most commonly used as a url shortener for Twitter or to make urls more manageable for emails. However, bit.ly provides more services than simply url shortening. The most important service that is worth mentioning is the ability to track a link's usage (this is explained in detail below), and therefore provide valuable statistics to the person that created the link. This can be very handy if you are trying to gauge the effectiveness of a link. 

Things I Like

• Shortens url to something that does not take up multiple lines in an email or something other form of communication.
• Gives back usage statistics about how much the link is being clicked (details below). 
• Super easy to use and share through various social services.

Things I Don't Like

• While bit.ly has gone out of their way to think of ingenious ways to make it possible to shorten your link, it still takes a little bit of time to actually do the manual shortening. 
• Can't necessarily tell where the link is going depending on how you are viewing the link. In your browser you are supposed to be able to mouse over the link and get a quick preview, but this is browser dependent. 

Using the System

Usage Statistics: bit.ly provides usage statistics for every url that you create. These statistics include number of clicks, traffic broken down by date, referrers (how the person found the link i.e. twitter, facebook, ...), location from where the link was accessed, and various metadata. You are also able to see a total amount of global link usage for bit.ly user that has created a bit.ly link to your long link (so for instance if I create a bit.ly url to google.com, anyone else that made a bit.ly link to google.com will have their clicks included in my global account).

Using bit.ly: To actually use bit.ly it is very simple. You simply paste your long link into a text field, click Shorten, customize the link a bit, and voila you are done.

Tools: In order to make accessing bit.ly as easy as possible, bit.ly has built a number of tools that you can use to access their url shortening service. Most of these tools just provide a different interface for accessing their service, so it really depends on your personal preference. I have listed them here so that you can get a quick idea about the various options 

• Sidebar Bookmarklet: this is a flyout that provides shortening.
• Standard Bookmarklet: this is a link that allows for quickly shortening a url. 
• Browser Extensions: preview links...
• Access through twitter clients
• Access through mobile: m.bit.ly
• Gmail Gadget
• Track click on amazon affiliates

Sign Up Process

The sign-up is very easy. All you provide is a username, email, and password. You can also provide a twitter account at time of signup, if you have one.

** sorry about the formatting, the cat sat on the mouse and keyboard at the same time, i tried to clean it up as best as i could.