I've just released Sociable 3.3 which comes with a very cool new feature: awe.sm integration. Awe.sm is a URL shortener. Free for those with an account (it's in private beta right now), and then it uses awe.sm, but for $100 you get a URL shortener on your OWN domain!
Now I happened to have a cool domain lying around which I registered specifically for this purpose: yoa.st, and that is what I'm using now within my Sociable. Integration is very easy: you enable awe.sm integration in the backend, enter your own awe.sm API key, and voila: Sociable now uses your awe.sm URL's, and when you have your own domain like I do, it automatically uses those URL's!
URL shorteners are becoming very important these days, as they are just about the only reliable way of tracking social media traffic to your blog. Jonathan recently gave a presentation on BarCamp LA #7 with the very cool title "URLs are the new cookies". Check out his slides here:
Looks promissing. I'm not using the plugin at the moment, but will check out the awesome features!
I won't be forced to use a shorterner, will I? Because, I like the social links to point to my domain.
Thanks Yoast! Team awe.sm is very excited to add Sociable to our list of supported tools. If anyone has questions about awe.sm, please feel free to email me: jonathan [at] jonathanhstrauss.com
Great idea Joost. I'm looking forward to testing it out.
BTW, it would be nice to get your input on the financial support models we're discussing for plugin developers here:
http://tomuse.com/wp-plugins-developer-business-model
Wow, you're charging money for this? Sounds like a giant SEO sized scam.
Matthew,
The service (Awe.sm) costs $100, not the plugin. But what if it did? Are you not willing to support plugin developers that create great products?
Joost:
What's your opinion on the SEO related advantages/disadvantages of using a url shortener? Would it gain SEO value that could be pushed to your own site or could search engines see it as spam? I would love to hear you thoughts on this :)
Hi Joost, can you tell me what the advantages of using sociable 3.3 are over say the ShareIt plug in please? I'm only asking as I find ShareIt slows down my sites loading time and I'd be open to try an alternative, thanks
Yea I think $100.00 is a lil much, when you can use like http://tr.im and it tracks every time link is clicked and has stats and more, you may have to make one for each refer to track them but hey it is free after all. I do love your sociable plugin though and use on my WP.
Kapone, if you outsource your links to external sites then you're dependent on those sites staying operational. If they go bust, then all those links you posted up will likely be broken.
Though awe.sm do seem to be doing something different to other url shortener, I do think $100 is a bit much. Especially, when you can get something similar for free with a script like lil URL.
Coupled together I can see the power of Awe and Sociable. However, you can use the wordpress plugin Pretty Link as a link shortener for your domain and it is free. My blog is MyMarketer.net and though the domain is a bit long I do use the Pretty Link plugin to track just about everything. The nice thing is that you can also frame the visiting website. For example, if you want to go to the Pretty Link plugin website I would give you the url mymarketer.net/pretty. When you visit the plugin site, you will see a frame at the top advertising my blog. I didn't create this plugin but I sure do like it. Plus, anything that is FREE.99 always scores bonus points in my book.
cool ithink I`m gonna like this one
I wanted to get your thoughts on this...
Googles recent announcement that using nofollow on links wont cause your pagerank to be re-assigned but in fact cause it to evaporate means that having loads of social bookmarking links on the bottom of your post will result in a big loss in pagerank?
Any chance of making the next plugin javascript based?!
I have to second @Paul W.'s recommendation for Pretty Links - it is free, has good tracking tools, and lives on your own domain. Its fast and I have it integrated on a site with several other plugins with no issues. It also supports 307 redirects, which increases trackability.
Very cool. Thanks for maintaining such a useful tool.
The thing that I like best about this plugin is that it covers just about everything. I get really sick of advertisers, marketers and media people talking about MySpace, Facebook, and now Twitter because as soon as these people get involved, the social networks become infinitely uncool and culturally irrelevant. I mean, why is social media interesting? It's just media. And media isn't interesting at all. People are interesting. Ideas are interesting. Yoast is interesting. Plugins, website and wordpress... all interesting. But media is boring because it just connects all of these interesting things together. With this awesome plugin, you've never limited me to a handful of 'popular' social networks... you've included the whole kitchen sink, and I thank you.
I'm going to add you to my blogroll. And if you're interested, I rant regularly on social topics here: http://kl.am/VBE
You can also follow me @Duebel.
Thank you.
Yoast just released version 3.3.1 which includes the option to use awe.sm for tracking within Google Analytics without requiring an awe.sm account or API Key. Just check the 'Enable awe.sm URLs?' option and leave the API Key field blank and you should start seeing your traffic from awe.sm links show up in Google Analytics.
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Ah, thank you, gonna upgrade.
I just updated to 3.3 and now none of the icons show up. Just text. What gives?
Same problem. Did a little snooping and it looks like he dropped one folder from the file path -- all icons are in the folder 'images' inside of the 'sociable' folder, but 'sociable' is missing from the file path. Easy enough to fix on your own if you can't wait for an official fix.
Yeah I get the same problemas Andy above. The icons have disappeared and now there are only text links.
I got it too... have had to disable. There is a fix posted here: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/286998 but I image a patched version will be released soon as it is a simple fix.
thanks for the info,
I might go update with the new integration.
wow you got to be kidding me...
great plugin but $100 for a new shortner the guy who mentioned that being a SEO scam is right.
It's not a scam, it's a valid service that takes a lot of shit out of your hands. If you don't see the value: fine, don't use it. I do though, and I do not appreciate you calling it a scam, even though I'm not affiliated with them in any way or form.
Thanks Yoast for the kind words. I *am* associated with awe.sm, and can confirm it's not a scam. The basic service is actually free (though still in private beta). And the $99/year fee ($8.25/month) is only if you wish to have awe.sm run on your own domain.
After reviewing this plugin and trying a couple more out, I have to say, I'm really dissatisfied with awe.sm's plugin. It just doesn't do enough. Twitter Blog will not only tweet your blog post, but it will also check hourly for replies to that tweet and turn it into a comment on that blog post. It also uses the bit.ly API for URL shortening and adds link generated to your bit.ly account for tracking purposes. #awe.smfail
Shame that you currently need an invite code to use awe.sm. Wanted to try out the basic service to see if the paid service is worth it, but don't have that option until they come out of beta.