bit.ly : Amazing URL-Shortener

URL Shorteners are not new and there are already many websites that provides such service. However http://bit.ly/ is a new service that makes difference among all others. It’s a URL-shortener with lots of new stuff designed for an app developer who needs everything and more!

List of major features are as below:

1. History - It remembers the last 15 shortened URLs you’ve created. They’re displayed on the home page next time you go back. Cookie-based.

2. Click/Referrer tracking - Every time someone clicks on a short URL, it will add 1 to the count of clicks for that page and for the referring page.

3. There’s a simple API for creating short URLs from your web apps.

4. It automatically creates three thumbnail images for each page you link through bit.ly, small, medium and large size. You can use these in presenting choices to your users.

5. It automatically mirrors each page, never know when you might need a backup.

6. Most important for professional applications, you can access all the data about each page through a simple XML or JSON interface. Example.

More over it supports all the standard features you expect from serious url-shorteners.

As this is just the beginning, you can expect more features soon.