Go Daddy social products director Raj Nijjer
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Last week, prior to the more sensational speculation regarding the company’s possible sale, domain registrar and web hosting provider Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com) launched X.CO, its free URL shortening service.
X.CO uses a shorter URL than most services, allowing a few characters more flexibility with Twitter in particular, which sets a 140 character limit.
While anyone can use X.CO, the links can be customized and tracked by users who sign up for a free account. Statistics like who clicks links, from where and how often, are only available after logging in.
X.CO can be used within your browser’s bookmark toolbar and is compatible with Tweetdeck, Seesmic and Facebook, among other social networking applications.
In an email interview with the WHIR, Raj Nijjer, director of Go Daddy social products, discusses what sets X.CO apart from other URL shorteners and how valuable customer feedback has been to the expansion of the company’s services.
WHIR: Since Twitter is affiliated with bit.ly and Facebook has created its own URL shortener, http://fb.me, why would someone choose X.CO over these other integrated services?
Raj Nijjer: X.CO – quite simply – is the shortest of these URL shorteners. It’s also brand new, so there’s plenty of fresh real estate for users trying to find the perfect customized link. But beyond that, X.CO is the only service offering real-time link-sharing statistics, inclusive of custom timelines. That means users can define a specified date range to see how much traffic their links received over a certain time period.
WHIR: Who do you anticipate will be the main users of X.CO? Is the service more relevant for Go Daddy customers?
RN: Go Daddy created this service with all Internet users in mind. An X.CO bookmarklet makes it easy for users to shorten links from directly within any browser, whether they’re a Go Daddy customer or not. With social media integration, shortened links can be posted to Twitter and Facebook directly from X.CO too.
Go Daddy customers benefit from the service’s integration within Go Daddy products, including Social Visibility (verysocial.me) and our video-sharing platform, Video.me. In the near future, Go Daddy intends to offer “Use Your Domain” link shortening as a service to its domain and hosting customers. For developers, we’ve also made an API available, for X.CO for integration into their own applications.
WHIR: How will Go Daddy benefit from the addition of X.CO, since the service itself is free? Is there an opportunity for profit or is it more of a promotional tool?
RN: The service is definitely geared toward promotions over profits. We’re already the world’s largest domain name registrar and top Web hosting provider, but this is a real opportunity to show the world how socially relevant Go Daddy is.
WHIR: X.CO offers a customizable link feature. Can you describe how this would benefit someone shortening a URL?
RN: There are many benefits to X.CO’s customizable link feature. For starters, it lets users create a unique link for brand awareness or simply for vanity purposes – links can be made to look “prettier,” making them easier to read and look at, and reinforce a company or product name.
Users can even create multiple short URLS that direct to the same landing page, then use X.CO’s analytics to measure effectiveness of different viral campaigns, and compare them to word-of-mouth and other strategies.
Some folks may use it to organize their URLs (X.CO/MyHouseMap or X.CO/MyOfficeMap).
Others may use it to surface nested topics or products, buried on a busy website. The use cases are endless.
WHIR: Why should someone sign up for a freer account if they can use X.CO for free without one? Can you specify what some of the additional features are with an account?
RN: The custom link and real-time analytical reporting features are only available with a free account. It’s worth the effort, as statistics are broken down for registered users with measurements that include geolocation and click-referrer.
Once they’ve signed up, users can also come back to X.CO and see their URLs all organized in a single place. It’s faster to post URLs directly to Twitter and Facebook, as all your login data will be pre-loaded into your account.
WHIR: Is there an inherent connection between selling domain names and hosting sites and offering a URL shortening service?
RN: Yes, it’s more than just a coincidence. As the world’s largest domain name provider, Go Daddy intentionally wanted to put some spotlight on our new .CO domain name extension offering, which we launched last month.
X.CO is also a stepping stone for us to offer our customers a link shortening service for their own domain names.
WHIR: Are there any plans to expand the service with the addition of a social media photo site like TwitPic?
RN: Go Daddy is always looking to enhance and expand upon our existing products and services to better serve our customers. In fact, many of these improvements happen as the result of customer feedback.
We’re already in talks with multiple services and social applications to take X.CO to the next level.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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