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Bitly Redesign Angers Users

URL-shortening platform Bitly launched a redesign yesterday, sporting all sorts of new features. Bitly users can now: – Easily save, share and discover links — they’re called bitmarks, like ...
Bitly Redesign Angers Users
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  • URL-shortening platform Bitly launched a redesign yesterday, sporting all sorts of new features. Bitly users can now:

    – Easily save, share and discover links — they’re called bitmarks, like bookmarks.
    – Instantly search your saved bitmarks.
    – Curate groups of bitmarks into bundles and collaborate on bundles with friends.
    – Make any bitmark or bundle private or public.
    – See what friends are sharing across multiple social networks, all in one place.
    – Save and share links from anywhere with our new bitmarklet, Chrome extension and iPhone app.

    Sounds like great news, and an appropriate allocation of some of the $20 million Bitly received in its latest round of funding. Still, some users are quite displeased. And displeased people take to Twitter:

    “Historically, no product has ever benefitted from becoming more complex to use” http://t.co/uGyxwvNR — re: Bitly changes
    29 minutes ago via HootSuite · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    bit.ly flooded with howls of complaint after incomprehensible and catastrophic redesign. http://t.co/lePP5rVY #bit.ly
    19 hours ago via SocialOomph · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    Hey, @bitly – terribly sorry, but after relaunch the main feature – shorten a link – is basically hidden.
    4 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    So bitly got a redesign. And it takes me 3 more steps to shorten a link that used to only take 1 –__–
    32 minutes ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    It would appear that some bitly users aren’t so keen on the new ‘bitmarking’ feature. Bitly CEO Peter Stern told TechCrunch that the bad reaction was expected – “It’s the response from the vocal minority who are quick to complain about any change. We put a great deal of thought and effort into making the change as minimal as we could, but we recognize that people don’t like change.”

    bitly

    Bitly points out that most of the ‘new’ features always existed, but were just more difficult to see on the site. People tend to loathe any sort of abrupt change regarding the internet. I about moved to Singapore when Facebook somehow made me switch to a timeline.

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