We’ve been seeing signs earlier that Google, together with facebook, are gearing toward chipping down Bit.ly’s supremacy in the URL Shortener biz. Previously, we featured an article detailing that for the time being, Google and Facebook both created URL shorteners for their own products. If you would think deeply about it, you might probably arrive on a theory that Google and/or Facebook might be testing the water on this sector.
There’s no way, these giant tech companies will settle for ‘less’ if they can take the whole chunk of the empire, right?They have the funds, human resource – some of the brilliant programmers in the world and they are famous. Obviously, they might be thinking of the right time when to dive-in and launch their engines full steam ahead.
Thus, we’re not surprised when Google unveiled a URL shortener for its popular video sharing site Youtube – The youtu.be. Now, youtube users have the option to slash ‘pesky’ and nerd looking video URLs while sharing their videos to their friends and loved ones. This is great for promoting videos on your Twitter account, social media sites like Facebook, Myspace, web blogs and online sites. It’s kinda cool actually, not worrying if you completely and correctly copied the whole video link.
How to use youtu.be
It’s very simple and easy to do. let’s take this video link as an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bN77Mz71ZNI . By using the URL shortener, that same link can be written as: http://youtu.be/bN77Mz71ZNI. Both links will land you on this cute Christmas video entitled “Santa Paws”.
Some key points to remember on using youtu.be links. This URL shortener can only be used on Youtube video links. Every URL that has a youtu.be address will be redirected to youtube and youtube alone. The developers of this link shortener also explains that it is possible for the user to actually monitor how his/her video spread in “real time”. If you Remember, with Bit.ly you can track how many clicks are made on the link/customized link you created. Same thing for youtu.be.
The only limitation we saw is that at this moment, some vendors like Windows live Writer doesn’t approve youtu.be links when adding a video on your compositions. Perhaps, Microsoft would be releasing a patch to correct this in the days to come.
We’re still waiting for Facebook if it will follow Google’s step. For now, we’ll keep a close eye on the developments on this story.
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Tags: Facebook shortener, Google shortener, Google youtube, Web Matters, youtu.be shortener, Youtube, youtube link shortener, youtube url shortener, youtube video links
