Not sure which question is more appropriate here: why or why not? We’ve already witnessed the renewed interest in URL shortening services with the rise of communication platforms where brevity appears to be the norm rather than a side effect (Twitter!).
It was little surprising to see a custom one pop up that focuses specifically on iTunes links.
iTunes links are inherently long, non-sexy and practically unsharable web addresses that lead people directly to Apple’s media management software program where they can download applications for their iPhone or iPod Touch in a section called the App Store, Ã la http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/browserRedirect?url=itms%253A%252F%252Fax.itunes.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewSoftware%253Fid%253D321041850%2526mt%253D8.
(In case you’re wondering, that one goes to the Swimsuit Models app from Sports Illustrated. You’re welcome.)
What Appsto.re does is let you take those long URLs and turn them into custom links such as http://appsto.re/AreYouAMoron and … no that’s basically all it does, even if the team that built the app felt the service actually required its own manifesto. For something that can already be done with the tons of other URL shortening services out there.
I’m leaning towards the first question: why?
Update: as commenters have pointed out, the reason is that the developers of the service insert an affiliate link when shortening the URL and pick up a piece of the revenue generated from paid apps sales. They don’t mention this anywhere, but you can see it for a split second when you open the short URLs (the team told me the main benefit is for iPhone app developers to better brand links to their apps and in the future track conversion for clicks/sales).
Update 2: Tim Dorr tells us iPhone apps already have short URLs, e.g. http://itunes.com/apps/scavenge. Who knew?
Update 3: Appsfire also has a custom URL shortener for iPhone app links, and offers real-time analytics and soon, monetization tools.
Insert iTunes affiliate info into those short link and Bam! That would be my guess as to why.
Sean – think you are on to something – good reason!
+1
Yep, that’s exactly what they are doing. Check the redirect, it goes to linksynergy.com, which is LinkShare’s platform. This is just a grab for cash.
I’d take down this article because of it, personally.
Why, because they’re trying to make money off a product? Added a note about the affiliate link though.
Exactly, good for them.
Sounds like they plan to tack on some analytics too which could be helpful for app store marketing.
More like because it provides absolutely no value, isn’t a new service, and is a lazy money grab.
It’s more that they’re making money off someone else’s product. That seems sort of mean-spirited to me :/
They also told me iPhone app developers would prefer to brand iTunes links with the name of their product, which I guess makes sense too.
apple website needs itunes to be installed. that wont be true with many comps and same case with search engines.
Why not ?
Or even better… what a great ideia.
Appsto.re will probably create an social network for apps and apps user… where users will be able to comment, review and post video reviews.
There will probably be so many ways to rank the apps, in a way that great apps will always be found by users.
Monetize ? Well… all they need is create the community, after that they will be able to charge the apps developers… 5$ a month ? Very cheap… but again… how many apps there are for the iphone ?
I think their could be some good potential if they would do a little more with the links.
I, for one, do not like when someone gives me an iTunes link without me knowing that is will go to iTunes. It catches me of guard and forces iTunes to launch which can sometimes take a few moments of otherwise wasted time.
I mostly run into this problem because I think that the link is going to go to a web page with information about that application. Perhaps, in light of this, they could create a landing page where the developer can upload some information about their app. So, when you click the link, you are taken to a page telling you about the app and asking you if you want to open it in iTunes.
Hi Spencer, I am one of the developers of the http://appsto.re. I have read about your problem regarding the links to the information page of apps. Actually, we do have those links. Every app has “info” link (on that blue toolbar) to its information page. The only place where we don’t have that “info” link is at search results.
If you have some suggestion feel free to come and to give us your feedback.
Cool.
Actually, iTunes apps already have short URLs. Example: http://itunes.c...m/apps/scavenge
Just go to http://itunes.com/apps/ and it will either link directly to it if it’s the only result, or it will provide search results for that term.
And article updated a second time, thx
We played with those iTunes short URL’s and sadly they do not work. That is part of the reason we built appsto.re.
What exactly didn’t work? The one Tim shared worked like a charm.
The apps with long names become difficult. Try using an itunes short url for an app with a name like “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”. That sucker is way to long. With appsto.re you can turn it into…
http://appsto.re/harrypotter
Here is an example of a just plain broken itunes short url…
itunes.com/apps/starhogs:online&campaignbattles
http://appsto.re/starhogs
Heh. I can just imagine your internal strategy meeting when someone pointed out to you that Apple already had a URL shortener…months after you already began your prototype. That must have been a fun day at Appsto dot re.
Uh… You mean:
http://itunes.c...m/apps/starhogs
…Why would an App developer promote their app on this service and knowingly give away their commission revenue to you guys?? If I were promoting my app, you can bet I would rather use my own revenue-sharing codes.
That’s profoundly pointless. You can already shorten the name by using itunes.com/apps style links:
http://itunes.c.../apps/pocketgod
http://itunes.c.../apps/dogremote
http://itunes.com/apps/rolando
Hi Everyone,
I am one of the appsto.re founders. Wanted to thank everyone for their comments. We have plans to help iPhone developers track the conversion of sales/installs of their apps from appsto.re links. This is something valuable that id not available to people at the moment. We are just launching V1 today, stay tuned for more cool stuff to come.
This just reminded me of how much I hate bit.ly.
Thanks for the feedback guys,
We’ll be updating our FAQ section with some more info, but here are a few points relevant to the discussion above:
to @poopy and those who suggested the http://itunes.com/apps/. This is basically an “I’m feeling lucky” button via URL, which doesn’t guarantee to take visitors to a specific app. Apple doesn’t promote these urls, nobody knows of these urls and you don’t see people using them.
If one would consider these urls he would also be giving up the potential commission to Apple. Oh and did I mention that they are 60% longer than http://appsto.re/ urls?
One of the aspects of our business model is in fact referral fees, but as @andersonsantos and @robinwauters bravely defended, earning a buck for providing value to users/publishers isn’t a sin. You will notice that most iPhone apps are distributed either through the long Apple urls or bit.ly ones, and usually do not carry any affiliate bonus. Why? because most developers don’t want to deal with Apple/Linkshare. We offer a great service where developers get a branded and, as we believe, highly valuable url pointing users to their app.
We claim that http://appsto.re/facebook benefits developers/users/promoters much more than Apple’s URL (http://itunes.a...882215&mt=8) or a bit.ly URL (http://bit.ly/qnp0o). (we still love Apple and bit.ly worry not).
What we will be doing is most likely setup an FAQ section where we elaborate some more on our plans, and the sharing/viral/economic benefits to iPhone developers and publishers.
You’re more than invited to follow/contact us on Twitter: @appsto_re
And to provide direct feedback on our Uservoice page: http://appstore.uservoice.com/
Thanks,
ohad@appsto.re
It’s kind of ironic how you mention that you’re a fan of bit.ly when bit.ly is just a copycat of TinyURL (same service, but with a shorter domain name).
http://en.wikip...rg/wiki/TinyURL
Predictably there will be dozens and dozens of appsto.re clones a few months from now.
…and if you’re going to create a URL-shortener, it helps to have a URL that’s uh… reaaaally, reaally short.
For instance, takes up less characters to Tweet a bit.ly/12345 address than an appsto.re/myappname address.
Shave off three (or more) characters off of your domain name, and you might have something that others can’t replicate as easily.
There’s a reason why you didn’t mention TinyURL — even though they had the idea first. Think about it.
so if we had a shorter domain name we would pass your ‘judgment’? all those early comments seem to get nullified just too easily.
for why bit.ly looks like the winner in the horizontal url-shortening world, its not because they are shorter than tinyurl.com (remember is.gd? why didn’t they ‘beat’ bit.ly?). bit.ly ‘won’ because they had a fresh product, with real-time analytics, a team constantly working on an evolving product, no down-time. tinyurl? oh yeah that website was developed years ago, hasn’t been refreshed in years, hasn’t added features, and so easily forgotten.
did i mention bit.ly and twitter share investors? how about that to strengthen your chances of success in this world.
so, tinyurl goes down in wikipedia as probably the first url-shortener, bit.ly will reap the benefit of building the right product at the right time. sort of like how skype developed a voip client with the right features (nat traversal), at the right time (broadband arrived), and all the previous competitors (e.g. vocaltech) were left in the dust.
and to us, we’re focusing on the vertical of iphone applications, we’re offering a great url, great service and much more that is being built right now.
Who exactly are you quoting when you put quotes around the word ‘judgement’? Maybe you need to ‘rethink’ your ‘quoting style’.
All I can say is there’s a big difference between trying to be the next bit.ly and being an iPhone app shortener. The difference is:
a) You don’t have the relationship with Apple that bit.ly has with Twitter….and never will.
b) There billions of URLs for bit.ly to share. There are a miniscule number of apps to share in comparison.
c) Most app developers will not use your service.
Sorry… just being honest.
I like what someone mentioned above about a social network around iPhone apps.
IPhone apps do have reviews but you have to go through each app to read them.
I’d like to see/know what my friends installed and which ones they actively use! Wakoopa for the iPhone
this took developing? lmao. Seriously, what is with these shortened URL sites being churned out and being hailed as anything more than pointless? A mediocre PHP dev could wank out 20 of these a day, nothing good or new about them. Promote innovation, techcrunch!
hi samuel, too bad we didn’t know you or we would have outsourced to you
that’s it, no more replying to trolls, i promise
Some thoughts here from an iPhone dev here, who has struggled with long app urls and tracking inbound links (like the other 100k devs)
The Apple convention for shortening your url is: http://itunes.com/apps/name of your app *without spaces*
As one of the commenters pointed out, some apps have long names, which hurts your short url-ability – but I’d bet 90% of app names have 10 or fewer characters.
About “picking up a piece of the revenue”.. the good news is that it doesn’t come out of the devs take – Apple pays the 5% outright.
My advice for devs who want to go at it alone: Set up a LinkSynergy account so you get an add’l 5% (not hard) & use bitly to shorten & track links
Or, give Appsto.re a try – if it works well (which I have no idea) it’s prob worth forgoing the 5% you’re already not getting, and that doesn’t come out of your pocket.
meant “foregoing”
And, that link in my comment above goes nowhere – it’s just an example
This is stup.id
The Appsto company of Reunion Island must be pissed!
Link shorteners are going to ruin the web.
The toxicity of some comments here is amazing.
Taking an idea, coming up with an improvement or a niche redirection, and making some money is the history of the Internet. There are obviously a number of possible redirections for short URLs, and these guys have done one.
They’re making some money, and they’re offering app developers a value proposition that doesn’t cost developers any money.
Sweet.
It’s called Link rot. And it makes the web less useful in the long run.
At least Apple’s URL shortener is directly tied into the App Store’s database.
Horrible URL, I don’t know many average people who would click or even understand that at first glance. Gooooodluck
Great and useful service, that only iPhone app DEVELOPERS can truly appreciate at this time.
And this, actually, is all we need …
Great job!
so i guess the real question here is *why are you writing about this url shortener service on techcrunch*? am i missing something? is this news?
cant fault them for trying to make a quick buck out of it, i just hope they havent spent too much developing it hehe
What I find funny, is a site who themselves created a URL shortening service for no real reason, writing an article about another newly created URL shortening service. Seems really odd to me.
There are already a couple app store specific link shortening service that predate appsto.re. Though neither are as slick looking.
http://linktoapp.com (created by Arnold Kim from Mac Rumors/Touch Arcade)
http://app2.me (created but never really launched by me)
Unlaunched = FAIL. If you create it, just launch it. Why sit on it?
There’s one! http://www.okm.me
theres already a site called appboy, its very well done, caters to developers and users. i use it all the time! http://www.appboy.com, its the social network for app developers and users, very cool!
Do I get a badge for replying two months late?
But seriously, this is BS. Actually, two months after this article, there’s nothing new to this site: just a URL-shortener specific to apps.
This is not a company, this is a week-end project… and I am of the ones who think that them getting 5% off every sale is clearly not deserved. (even if Apple is the one paying it)
Also, I’m curious about TechCrunch reasons to run this article in the first place and to also update the article to point to AppsFire and not any of the many other AppStore-specific URL-shorteners. AppsFire’s link maker is doing the exact same thing as Appsto.re: not much but getting their commission. One reason for TechCrunch to put it there though is that the founder of AppsFire was apparently the founder of TechCrunch France. Conflict of interest?