I’ve always been longing to tweet with Google’s URL Shortener Service; http://goo.gl when it was last launched a couple of months ago. I’ve seen one of my favorite ICT4D Tweep & follower; @Wayan_Vota use it a couple of times and I guess, he’s still using it.
Woke up this morning and decided to try it out once again. Lo and behold; it’s working from Ghana now. Guess, it is now opened to the general public.
Goo.gl URL Shortener Service
About Goo.gl
The Google URL Shortener at goo.gl is a service that takes long URLs and squeezes them into fewer characters to make a link easier to share, tweet, or email to friends.
Goo.gl used to be sort of an invitational ONLY product from Google —it was like, only a few trusted people could utilize it.
How do I use the Google URL Shortener?
Go to goo.gl and paste the long URL you wish to shorten into the input box at the top of the page. Click “Shorten” and to the right of the box you’ll see a short goo.gl URL that can be copied and pasted anywhere you’d like to share it.
If you’d like to track the analytics of your shortened URL, please sign in to your Google Account before shortening your URL. Your shortened URL will automatically be added to your goo.gl history.
Why use the Google URL Shortener?
People share a lot of links online. This is particularly true as microblogging services such as Twitter and Google Buzz have grown in popularity. With character limits in tweets, status updates, and other modes of short form publishing, a shorter URL leaves more room to say what’s on your mind.
According to Estelle Akofio-Sowah; Google Ghana Lead, the primary goal in making this service publicly available to all users is to harness Google’s global production infrastructure to provide users with the following benefits:
- Stability – reliable service with good uptime
- Security – warning message if the short URL points to a suspected malware, phishing, or spam website
- Speed – fast resolution of short URLs (in a few milliseconds)
Features
Goo.gl short URLs are randomly generated, and the mappings of short URLs to long URLs are publicly accessible. Additionally, the short URL to long URL mappings are:
- Immutable – once created by you, no one else can change them
- Irrevocable – once created, they do not expire. Note, however, that Google reserves the right to remove any goo.gl short URL, for example for spam, security or legal reasons
Related articles
- Google URL Shortener, aka Goo.gl, Finally Gets Its Own Web Site [Url Shorteners] (lifehacker.com)
- Google URL Shortener (goo.gl) Goes Public With Stats (techie-buzz.com)
- Google’s Goo.gl URL Shortener Is Now Open (ewriting.pamil-visions.com)
