Microsoft Bing Gets Its Own URL Shortener

by Leplan on January 16th, 2010 12

After Facebook and Google, its Microsoft that has entered the market of URL shortening. It has launched binged.it, which is (to my surprise) longer than its Search Engine URL bing.com.

Binged.it is not yet public and is currently available only for internal use. According to SeattlePi, Microsoft is collaborating with Bit.ly on the URL Shortener. The blog article claims that binged.it redirects to bit.ly, but when I tried it takes me to bing.com.

Is.gd is 4 characters, Fb.me (Facebook) is 4 characters, Goo.gl is 5 characters, bit.ly has 5 characters, nxy.in has 5 characters, Youtu.be is 7 characters while Binged.it is 8 characters. Microsoft might have chosen this domain to make it look like bing following Google’s and Facebook’s footsteps.

The URL Shortener craze is increasing in the world, and most of the top Web companies have started their own. Bit.ly remains the market leader so far, thanks to Twitter for making it the default URL shortener for its site. Bit.ly is also the default URL shortener of TweetDeck, Tweetmeme and many other major Twitter Apps.

Most of these URL shorteners are believed to target the Twitter growing craze, and Twitter seems in no mood to increase its 140 character limit for messages.

Is Yahoo the next to enter this game?

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Comments

Timothy Bussmann

The nic.im registry lets you buy 1 letter domains, but they are pricey. I thought about registering 0.im but the cost was just too high for my liking. When I was considering it, the price was 1000 pounds a year. However, a corporation this seems like peanuts.

January 18, 201012:39 am

John

You do realize that binged.it is a play on words that relays searched information back, shortening the part after bing.com, not the part before. It’s not just a “URL shortening.” Stop searching so much for something to write about. Find another job and use google anyway.

January 18, 20101:08 am

Dave

That’s because they are easy to develop and can (potentially) provide an easy way to track links. For instance, in one afternoon I developed a “shortening” service “SomeWebLink.com”.

http://www.someweblink.com

It obviously isn’t the shortest of the short, but consider that most shortening isn’t about getting the shortest link possible – it’s about getting a manageably shorter link relative to the original. Mine does that fine but with a novel URL name. Anyway, presented to demonstrate.

-D

January 18, 20101:54 am

Malte Landwehr

I think Microsoft focussed to much an branding on not enough on usefulness when they chose this domain. Having 3-4 more characters then the established services is an insurmountable disadvantage.

January 18, 20102:24 am