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Apr
27
2010

HootSuite changes url shortener ow.ly, creates ht.ly

By | Marketing, News & Notes, Social Networks

4 Comments

HootSuite today released changes to its url shortener, ow.ly.  Perhaps bowing to customer preference, Ow.ly is now links directly to the original long URL instead of to a page with the social bar at the top.  HootSuite has moved the social bar functionality to a new URL shortening service, ht.ly (pronounced “hoot-ly”), for those who prefer it.  Either service can be selected as the default for use with HootSuite (and changed at any time).

There was a bit of clamor in the Internets about the use of the social bar on shortened links, not only by ow.ly but also by Digg and Facebook.  The concern was whether the practice somehow stole Google juice (for SEO pagerank) and that it disrupted the browsing experience.  Marketers may like the social bar since it gives users the opportunity to further interact with the linked content by sharing it via various social networks. Both services still give usage statistics back to HootSuite, which is useful for seeing how your content is being shared.

When you login to HootSuite, you’ll be given the choice between the two url shortening services (which you can change in the preferences as well):

How a shared link looks with ow.ly now (no social bar at the top):

A shared link with ht.ly (social bar is at the top):

HootSuite has also announced a new ow.ly/pro service which will provide custom URL shorteners for businesses who purchase “vanity” URLs.  The service has not yet been released, but you can signup to get more information as it is released.

Changing ow.ly to link directly to the original URL makes the service faster and appeases many people who have been hesitant to use the service (or HootSuite).  Since linking to the social bar is also a nice service, creating a new shortener, ht.ly, with that functionality makes sense.  Allowing users to choose between them, at will, is a win all around.  HootSuite did an excellent job with this change and should be used as an example of how to change your service without annoying your customers.

What do you think?  If you weren’t using HootSuite or ow.ly before, would you consider it now?

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  • http://blog.hootsuite.com/ HootSuite.com

    Thanks for sharing the news – indeed we listen to HootSuite users and watch industry trends to make the best decisions for our social media dashboard. We're glad you noticed the care we put into the release and roll-out process designed to not annoy (or confuse) our beloved users.

  • http://www.marmalade-on-toast.co.uk/ Andy @ FirstFound

    I've used HootSuite for a while, but I'll admit to using a different shortener to avoid the social bar. Now they've dropped it, I'll be able to just use ow.ly and save myself a few seconds here and there.

    Great move by HootSuite.

  • http://sazbean.com sazbean

    It's good to see a company listening and responding to their community. And the way the changes were put in was very thoughtful. Nice job!

  • http://sazbean.com sazbean

    Honestly the social bar didn't bother me too much – mostly because other services, including Facebook & Digg were using one as well. Now that the trend seems to be to move away from the bar, I think it's good that HootSuite is following. I do appreciate that ow.ly is now much faster without the social bar – but they did keep the social bar in a separate service for those that like it. Thanks for your thoughts!