If you use Twitter, you probably use URL shortening services every day. If not, you probably still find a use for one now and then. You may shorten a long address down so you can read it over the phone (or in a podcast), or you might want to just take it down to size so it looks better in an email, blog comment or forum post.
What is your tool of choice? Are you one of the many Bit.ly users, a Tr.im fanatic, an Ow.ly devotee, or one of those still loyal to ye olde TinyURL? Maybe you use more than one?
Please take a minute to answer this poll. It would be interesting to see which services are more popular, and to learn of lesser-known ones.
What is your preferred URL shortener?
- Bit.ly (52%, 17 Votes)
- Other (Please leave a comment) (24%, 8 Votes)
- TinyURL.com (18%, 6 Votes)
- Ow.ly (15%, 5 Votes)
- Tr.im (12%, 4 Votes)
- Is.gd (9%, 3 Votes)
- Su.pr (6%, 2 Votes)
- 3.ly (3%, 1 Votes)
- Digg (-39%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 33
(If you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, you may have to click through to the original article to vote.)

bit.ly user here… I like their stats feature and I'm planning on using their API on some projects of mine.
One other thing I'm also looking at (and considering to use too) is YOURLS (http://yourls.org) a PHP/MySQL URL shortening script that provides basic stats and a API, it looks pretty promising, if you want to host your own URL shortening service (to avoid what happened recently with Tr.im and the risk of loosing your shortened URLs) is a good option to consider too.
One question Matt, is there any plans to add support to bit.ly (using our own API key) to your Tweetable plugin?
Thanks!
Yes, I do have plans to add Bit.ly support, with your own API key. (In fact, *not* using an API key is no longer an option in the Bit.ly API.) I don't know when it's coming, but it's certainly planned.
I'll have to have a closer look at Yourls sometime. Lester "Gamerz" Chan and Ozh developed it, and it sort of competes with my (in need of attention) GoCodes plugin, which I have some plans to revamp sometime in the coming year if other plans work out.
The YOURLS url was posted wrong… the correct URL is: http://yourls.org
I use the cli.gs shortener simply because of its analytics and social monitoring features. It also has useful Firefox and Google tools.
http://microurls.com – But I am biased
Yes, I would say you are biased.
Oh, and you forgot your </shameless_self_promotion> tag…
Yes, I would say you are biased.
Oh, and you forgot your </shameless_self_promotion> tag…
i prefer the state specific wvurl.com. Its pretty big on twitter and used for relevant info in the state.
Bit.ly and TinyURL is better than other