Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Why Twitter's T.co Is a Game Changer

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the everyone-wants-a-piece-of-that dept.

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."

25 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Just what we need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Another way for marketers to track your usage.

    1. Re:Just what we need by 0123456 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On the plus side, if all marketers are using the same domain for tracking URLs, then it only takes one line in /etc/hosts to block them all.

      And am I the only one who just does not click on any 'shortened' URL because you never know what it's going to take you to? OK, so www.fluffybunnies.com could still take me to a goatse site, but it's far less likely to do so.

    2. Re:Just what we need by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And am I the only one who just does not click on any 'shortened' URL

      You aren't the only one. I won't click on them either. I probably wouldn't go to your fluffybunnies url either and tend to stick to just the few I have 'whitelisted' in my brain. A certain citrus celebration themed URL comes to mind when discussing URLs that sound safe on paper...

      --
      Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
    3. Re:Just what we need by hierophanta · · Score: 2, Interesting

      i click on anything i feel like - and my usage is tracked by the governmental organization i work for. the solution is no-script and a firewall that works. come on, we are supposed to be nerds - how is not clicking an option?

    4. Re:Just what we need by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I dislike unnecessarily shortened URLs. It's like people who will abbreviate every word they can in a text message when they're not sending anything near the limit. (Or worse, in contexts where there are no such limits.) Now there are programs for tweeters that will automatically shorten every embedded URL this way. I'd much rather they only shorten them when needed.

      Meanwhile news sites should be paying attention to which stories get more traffic and proactively provide their own short paths to the story for purposes of tweeting.

      And if Twitter wanted control over shortening services, they should just adopt their own syntax for it. "^code" could be remapped in their own database to hyperlink on display, mouse-over could still expand before following, and would take far less space than "http://T.co/code". And they still could do it through a redirection URL so they can track click-through like FARK.com does, using scripting to rewrite the status bar to hide the full redirection URL.

      Unless they really want to track the sharing of the links off-site, just to have the most information possible. (And the Referer [sic] header handles differentiation there.) Then they could combine it all: ^code in sight maps to http://t.co/code cite which redirects to site, with mouse-over showing full site's URL cite to user's sight, but copying the link and pasting gets the tico code cite.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    5. Re:Just what we need by GrumblyStuff · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not only that, any links via URL shorteners are rendered useless if the service goes down.

    6. Re:Just what we need by Mystra_x64 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Anyone want to help this guy?

      --
      Quick way to get 30% Funny 70% Troll: defend Opera browser on /.
    7. Re:Just what we need by cain · · Score: 2, Funny

      A certain citrus celebration themed URL comes to mind

      Yeah - I can't stand those a-holes either. F--kin douchebags.

  2. *shrug* by garcia · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From the article:

    This is why short URLs are so important. URLs survive the share. Because the interested reader is forced to go to the URL shortener to map the short URL to the real one, whoever owns the shortener sees the engagement between the audience and the content, no matter where it happens. That's why URLs are the new cookies.

    As long as you keep the URL shortened and are sharing it on Twitter. What about when you cross those boundaries and share on Facebook (which is the biggest social network) or e-mail or chat or whatever? Once you take the ball out of Twitter's court the analytics become useless from t.co--just like any other URL shortener.

    This is a non-issue for the privacy geeks as they'll just share the original URL and not do it via Twitter.

    Honestly, Twitter traffic is fairly useless for anyone as the visitors tend to be one-time flybys who spend less than a few seconds on your endsite and just end up lowering your time on site and raising your bounce metrics. If you want engagement you better be using some other network to get your funnel working the way you want.

    1. Re:*shrug* by 0123456 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The fun part about this article is that the text and comments appear to show that marketers realise we hate them but the continue to do these things anyway.

      I believe we have a name for people like that?

    2. Re:*shrug* by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I never click on a shortened link. You never know when it migh be a redirect to goatse.cx or worse.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    3. Re:*shrug* by gatzke · · Score: 2, Funny

      Worse than goatse? Example, please...

    4. Re:*shrug* by thijsh · · Score: 4, Funny

      I dare you to click (NSFA): http://bit.ly/4ieaw :-)

    5. Re:*shrug* by hierophanta · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Scientology? that's hilarious. see my previous comment - safe clicking enabled by no-script and a firewall that works

    6. Re:*shrug* by Xacid · · Score: 3, Funny

      Win. I personally hate them. So much that I feel like posting this even though I know it adds no value.

    7. Re:*shrug* by mcgrew · · Score: 2, Funny

      Slashdot, for one...

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    8. Re:*shrug* by gamricstone · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have never visited the above site before, and currently have no-script enabled in firefox. The above page still automatically redirects for me. I've purged my whitelist of any websites I don't frequent, but am still unable to cancel the redirect. So I ask, how did you configure no-script not to redirect from the above url? *Note I have visited sites before where the redirect was canceled by no-script, listing the targeted url for redirect.

      --
      The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. - Einstein
  3. Twitter: now with spying! by metrometro · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Twitter, long described as a "semi-open" platform, whatever that means, will now proceed to become a case study in the difference between actually open (user-owned, peer-to-peer) and not at all open (corporate owned, centralized) in modes of communication.

  4. Identica by Compaqt · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is probably a good time to mention the Linuxy, freeish, openish alternative to Twitter:

    http://identi.ca/

    And if you don't like Identi.ca, create your own microblogging system with StatusNet:

    http://status.net/

    --
    I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
  5. Attach the stupid URL as metadata by MBCook · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If Twitter would just let you attach a URL to each tweet as metadata (like the user name or time it was sent), no one would need any of these stupid URL shortening services. Think! URLs that would work next year when 3 of those services disappear.

    I know Twitter was designed with the limitations of SMS in mind, but most recent phones seem to support longer multi-part SMS messages, and most people seem to use a twitter client on their phone now instead of the SMS gateway.

    Fix the root problem, don't apply another band-aid. By making all the links go through Twitter as a passthrough, they could get this marketing data they want.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    1. Re:Attach the stupid URL as metadata by mysterons · · Score: 2, Informative

      oh you mean twitter annotations http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/02/twitter-annotations-testing/

  6. Not upset, Taco? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    So Twitter has a new service called T.co and you're not calling them out for trademark infringement, Taco?

  7. Re:More importantly... by corbettw · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think it's pronounced "Throatwarbler Mangrove".

    --
    God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  8. It's not a game changer by whencanistop · · Score: 2, Informative
    From TFA:

    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) 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.

  9. Un-bit.ly links by InvisiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

    Check out the Browser Extensions section of http://bit.ly/pages/tools 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

    I would expect similar tools to pop up for any URL shortening service that becomes decently popular.