Tag Archives: Ow.ly

Ow.ly Removes Toolbar, Launches Second Shortener

Apr 29, 2010 by Matt | Posted in Social Media No Comments

HootSuite’s URL shortener, Owl.ly, no longer puts its controversial iframe toolbar atop shortened links. The toolbar has been known to discourage some potential users from trying the HootSuite Twitter client.

As a compromise, HootSuite is launching a second shortener, Ht.ly, that offers the same toolbar. Users will be given a choice as to which shortener they would prefer.

Choice is a good thing in just about any situation, and like ice cream, one flavor doesn’t fit everyone on the web so now HootSuite users can now choose between two flavors of links — one with a social bar and one without.

Next time you login to HootSuite, you can choose which shortener you prefer — Ow.ly, which from today onward will have no social bar, or Ht.ly, which will have the social bar.

Whichever link shrinker you choose will become your default for all links you shorten in HootSuite, including links created with the one-click Hootlet tool.

In related news, “Ow.ly Pro” is being tested by a certain group of HootSuite users. It is much like Bit.ly’s service, allowing you to have your own short domain be used for your URLs.

Is Ow.ly Framejacking?

Jul 31, 2009 by Matt | Posted in Social Media 7 Comments

The popular URL shortening service Ow.ly has recently come under fire on Twitter, and is being criticized for “framejacking.” (Framejacking is an unpleasant trick that was employed quite a lot in the late nineties, where someone would load others’ web pages into a frameset along with their own branding and ads. Example.)

I ask you, is what Ow.ly does bad?

Ow.ly Toolbar

How does this thin toolbar, as you can see above in the image, harm you or your website in any way? The bar is thin and unobtrusive. There are no paid ads, and the Ow.ly logo is tiny.

I argue that Ow.ly is useful to your social media-connected readers, and to you. The short URLs are easily shareable on Twitter, like any URL shorteners’, and the toolbar puts Tweet and Share buttons in easy reach, which can score you some retweets, Diggs, and Stumbles, which may lead to more traffic for you.

As a prolific Twitter user, when I read an interesting article, whether it be from Twitter or no, the first thing I do after is post it to Twitter. I have a handy bookmarklet that opens my desktop client (Tweetie) and dumps the link and page title into it. Not everyone has such a thing. People who enjoy Twittering, but aren’t quite as obsessed as I am, often use the Twitter.com web interface. Ow.ly’s convenient Tweet link makes posting an article a snap. Which saves the poster time, and it benefits the publisher.

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