There’s some analysis over at TechCrunch suggesting that bit.ly’s $8 million valuation is either incorrect, or if it is correct, then TinyURL is worth “at least $46 million” as it holds around four times as much of the market as bit.ly. The problem with this thinking is that bit.ly does something very important that TinyURL does not: it provides some stat monitoring capabilities.
So I will contest right now that Bit.ly’s tracking capabilities would make it far more valuable than the current version of TinyURL if Bit.ly only had two thirds as many users as its larger counterpart, and I will say so for two reasons. Number one is that the current analytics provide Bit.ly users with data on how their shortened links are being used online, which is in itself useful. But reason two, spurred by reason one, is the far larger source of value: current analytics suggest that Bit.ly could come to market with their own analytics, complete with the integration they already do quite well. I know I would pay a little bit extra if my normal analytics site integrated my truncated URLs so I could get all my data in one place.
