MySpace link shortener makes early inroads on Twitter
In its first week, MySpace has captured the second spot for the most popular link-shortening services on Twitter. It's trailing behind Bitly, Twitter's default link-shortening program.
It has only been a week since MySpace launched its two-way sync with Twitter, but already the service has made an impact on the popular microblog.
MySpace's "lnk.ms" is now the second most used link-shortening service on Twitter, according to statistics compiled by Twitter link tracker Tweetmeme.
Over the past 24 hours, lnk.ms was included in 15.66 percent of all tweets containing links, Tweetmeme claims. It follows only Bitly, which was used in more than 69 percent of tweets featuring links to outside sources. TinyURL, Owly, and Isgd follow MySpace's lnk.ms with 10.43 percent, 2.75 percent, and 2 percent share of tweets, respectively.
MySpace hasn't divulged how many users are syncing with Twitter. A company spokeswoman told me in an e-mail message that MySpace cannot provide any details on usage yet. Twitter did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The fact that MySpace has been able to make such a mark on Twitter in just one week is quite a feat. When the company announced two-way syncing with Twitter last week, it allowed users of both social networks to update their status and syndicate that to the other network. MySpace's lnk.ms is the result of that.
Whenever a user who has activated two-way syncing updates their MySpace status, a snippet of that update is syndicated to their Twitter profile. A unique lnk.ms link follows that tweet. When the user's Twitter followers click on it, they can view the full status update. If the updates are kept private, the update can't be viewed by followers who aren't also friends with the user on MySpace.
Before we get too carried away over the success of MySpace's link-shortening feature, it should be noted that Tweetmeme's calculations are based only on links it processes. Also, the company tracks link-shortening usage over the past 24 hours, so we have yet to see how MySpace's service will fare in the long run.
But so far, it seems that MySpace has made its mark on the service. And by the looks of things, it doesn't seem the Twitter community's use of lnk.ms will be slowing down anytime soon.
(Via TechCrunch)