Bit.ly - the popular URL shortening service - have plans to launch a real-time news service by compiling the most popular of the millions of links it processes each day.
Bit.ly have recently overtaken TinyURL to become the default URL shortening tool for Twitter and with it millions of links to news items, blogs, and articles are published each day . Bit.ly is a great tool that already provides some simple real time tracking information which can show you how many people have clicked on your link and so with this wealth of information Bit.ly are able to use this information intelligibly for real time news.
Before this is fully exercised Bit.ly are also planning on launching a more premium web data package which users will have to pay for. This will give users more information than what is already provided and will help generate the funds to fully explore and launch their real time news platform.
In an interview conducted by Wired magazine with Bit.ly’s general manager Andrew Cohen he stated that the company is looking to offer paid-for-data and an analytics service as well as a subscription based news service. This news feed allows Bit.ly to seek up and coming trends before major media outlets much like Twitter does already. However on major difference is that the trending information would be based on popularity of the individual links rather than keywords.
Allegedly rumors have suggested that Twitter is looking to acquire Bit.ly and have raised $2million in funding. However any truth in this is yet to come out.
URL shortening is all the rage at the moment and Bit.ly has really risen to the new phenomenon. As Twitter continues to grow in users and real time continues to build momentum these new additions from Bit.ly will be and extremely useful and welcome change.