With both Google and Facebook taking swipes at it and invading its home territory, even if with veiled intentions, it didn’t take long for Bit.ly, the biggest name in URL shorteners at the moment and undisputed market leader, to respond. Just as Facebook was revealed to be testing Fb.me and Google introduced Goo.gl, Bit.ly is stepping up the game with pro accounts offering what amounts to a whitelabel service, built on its infrastructure but with the customer’s own domain name.
“Today we’re pleased to announce a new service: bit.ly Pro. The Pro service provides custom short URLs powered by bit.ly. Publishers and bloggers will be able to use their own short domain names to point to pages on their sites,” Bit.ly announced. “Users and publishers benefit from the additional transparency that this private-label service provides. When you see a short URL like nyti.ms, you know the destination web site before clicking on the link. The service includes all the bit.ly features users and publishers have come to expect.”
What this means is that publishers, bloggers, companies or anyone interested in having its own short URL can still get access to all the tools Bit.ly provides like detailed analytics. For now, the Pro service is in beta and is only available to a few sele… (read more)