While there are plenty of markets that Google enters for the sake of spreading word, increasing market share, or gaining additional income opportunities, there are at least a few that are incidental. This is the case with Goo.gl, a shortener akin to bit.ly or moo.url that trims down long site addresses to a simple 12-character URL. Goo.gl was actually developed by a Googler for internal use, and for no other reason but the desire to add the features that they themselves wanted to use. While it was released to the public months ago, it is now taking this a step further with the release of a public API.
According to a report from Mashable, Google API was released to developers earlier in January, and while it can be used by anyone, it’s specifically meant for app developers. The API is described as “rather straightforward,” since it allows devs to easily utilize the shortening/expanding features of Goo.gl with any addresses their site or app uses. Notably for developers, the Goo.gl API also allows for the retrieval of the analytics and history of the generated URL.
In the official Google Code Blog entry, Googler Ben D’Angelo stated that the API can allow for “behaviors ranging from auto-shortening within Twitter or Google Buzz clients to running regular jobs that monitor your usage statistics and traffic patterns.” D’Angelo also brags about the fact that Goo.gl is “one of the fastest URL shorteners out there” according to a Pingdom report, and states that Google is “continuing to work on several usability improvements and to make our auto-detection of spammy or malicious content even more robust.”
The API can be accessed from the Google Code Labs. Full documentation for the API is available here. Adcloud Media
