Loy Okezie
Nigeria has made its own mark in the url shortening space with the launch of Yrn.me on February 4th, 2010.
Since Twitter limited web users to publishing not more than 140 characters, url shortening services have continued to populate the web space. So far, shorter is better.
The first url shortener was tinyurl.com and since then others such as bit.ly, is.gd, ow.ly, tr.im, South Africa’s (gatorurl.com), Google’s (goo.gl), Facebook’s (fb.me), StumbleUpon’s (su.pr), Youtube’s (youtu.be), Friendfeed’s (ff.im), Sturvs’ (go.sturvs.com) amongst others.
YRN.Me, a 5-lettered domain name better spoken as “Yarn Me” (Nigerian slang word for “tell me”) can shorten up to 2,000 characters length of web addresses to merely 20 characters just like bit.ly
The service also features a free API which allows web developers to remotely shorten long web address easily and efficiently without hassles. After submitting a URL to be shortened via the API, a HTTP response page will be returned containing the new URL or simply the error message.
Yrn.me’s founder, Ahmad Mukoshy describes his “next big thing” as a micro discussion platform that allows you to create discussion threads of topics of interest in fewer than 140 char and share with the world in the easiest way. (Updated)
For now, it’s still a work-in-progress.
My take
With over 100 url shorteners around the world, I’m wondering if yrn.me will make any impact. Currently, bit.ly has the largest market share (54.69%), tinyurl.com (7.39%), ow.ly (4.38%) according to TweetMeme stats.
Perhaps if Yrn.me could be adopted by Nigerian web users and gradually by Nigerian companies on Twitter, we might soon start seeing a general shift from other url shorteners to this new service – at least.
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One word. Stats.
http://tweetmeme.com/about/statistics
One word. "Link Stats". Err, sorry. That's two words.
Thanks alot for the review, http://yrn.me will soon feature stat report for links and also custom link keyworks.
I also hope to have more nigerian web developers to adopt the yrn.me api.
Its my pleasure having this report.
Just checked out the site.. Nice job! however Loy, you didnt mention sturvs.com has a shortener at http://go.sturvs.com
Although i would not use sturvs’s service because it uses a FRAME to mask urls (very bad thing to do).. yet I think it deserves a mention!
Oh, error of omission! Updated post.
soaring Eagles to their first Super Bowl appearance since the days of Ron Jaworski (Jan. Url Shorteners
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Loy Okezie and Ahmad, Loy Okezie. Loy Okezie said: Yrn.me – Nigeria’s first URL Shortener Service: Nigeria has made its own mark in the url shortening space with th… http://bit.ly/d7q3zh [...]
Works just fine except for the fact that I get this feeling that it’s not as fast as bit.ly and the others. I could say it’s speed matches tinyurl very well.
Wonderful effort though. Should be writing a small update about it on my blog too.
@Chukwudi: Yeah, thanks…
I'd love to read that.
[...] guy named Ahmad Mukoshy, has deveoped a nifty url shortner which isn’t half bad. According to Loy Okezie YRN.Me, a 5-lettered domain name better spoken as “Yarn Me” (Nigerian slang word for “tell [...]
@Ahmad, just target Nigerians and you'd be overwhelmed.
Best of luck.
Thanks for dropping by. Will rather suggest @Ahmad builds #Yarnme as a Pan-African service. Trust me, there are greater benefits…
Sure, main targets are the Nigerian developers and general users.
[...] in January, Yrn.me’s founder, Ahmad Mukoshy described his “next big thing” as ”a micro discussion platform [...]
Nice job Ahmed.
I bet you, if you can push yrm,me to online Nigerian newspapers with some little customization (like http://punch.yrn.me), they will gladly accept it and use it always.
Thanks Loy for posting this. Keep living it up
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[...] service, Yrn.me has redesigned its logo and website which went live today. The service which launched in February 2010 was the first URL shortening service to come out of Nigeria. [Here's what it looked like before [...]