Why Twitter's T.co Is a Game Changer 109
macslocum writes "If Twitter is so inclined, the company could turn the new t.co shortening service into a powerful analytics tool that solves the marketing and tracking issues of off-site engagement."
Identica (Score:5, Informative)
This is probably a good time to mention the Linuxy, freeish, openish alternative to Twitter:
http://identi.ca/ [identi.ca]
And if you don't like Identi.ca, create your own microblogging system with StatusNet:
http://status.net/ [status.net]
It's not a game changer (Score:3, Informative)
If you're a nosy marketer, it gets worse. We're moving from a browser-centric to an app-centric world. Every time you access the Internet through a particular app -- Facebook, Gowalla, Yelp, Foursquare, and so on -- you're surfing from within a walled garden. If you click on a link, all the marketer sees is a new visit. The referring URL is lost, and with it, the context of your visit.
This isn't true. All these sites do a 301 redirect (well bit.ly certainly does [bit.ly]) so you won't lose the referrer or the context. Really this doesn't do a lot for the analytics of a site, apart from it is going to help Twitter work out how many people have clicked on which type of link (and if you're logged, who you are). It's giving them some more ammunition for contextual advertising.
Re:Just what we need (Score:4, Informative)
Not only that, any links via URL shorteners are rendered useless if the service goes down.
Re:Attach the stupid URL as metadata (Score:2, Informative)
Un-bit.ly links (Score:4, Informative)
Check out the Browser Extensions section of http://bit.ly/pages/tools [bit.ly] for an addon that will show you the unobfuscated links. As an example, here's a bit.ly link for my site: http://bit.ly/bHnUhd [bit.ly]
I would expect similar tools to pop up for any URL shortening service that becomes decently popular.