W.tf?! Tr.im not closing after all

Tr.im, one of the most popular URL-shortening services, shut down last week because its owners saw no way to monetize the service in such a competitive market. Twitter's choice of Bit.ly as its default link-shrinker means that service dominates the market, with smaller players like Ow.ly abd Tr.im fighting over what's left.

Tr.im has its supporters, though, and they apparently contacted Tr.im's owners, Nambu, in such high numbers that the service has now re-opened. Creating new links seems to work fine, and all of your old URLs should be right where you left them.

Was this whole thing a publicity stunt, intended to bring greater visibility to Tr.im? Nambu says no.

They're still looking to sell Tr.im so it can live on, but not to "an unknown group or individual" who might compromise users' existing Tr.im links in some way. I believe that this wasn't a publicity stunt, although there's little doubt it brought the service quite a bit of extra attention.

Nambu just seems to have realized that they had little to gain by shutting down abruptly with a message that basically claimed Tr.im was practically worthless. The overwhelming user response seems to have made Nambu realize that's no way to sell something.

Tags: shorturl, tinyurl, tr.im, trim, url-shortener