The owners of Tr.im have been through quite a saga, first raising a hue over Twitter using Bit.ly as the default URL shortening service (which it does not know), then trying to sell it, and then going Open Source.

However, it looks like the final nail has been hit into the coffin now. According to a new notice on the site, Tr.im will no longer be shortening URLs anymore, so users will have to use services like bit.ly or the other URL Shortening services.

The notice on the Tr.im site says this:

tr.im is no longer accepting URL shortening requests via its website. May we respectfully suggest that you choose one of the many other wonderful alternatives available.

Please understand that this does not affect any software that has tr.im available within it. tr.im’s API is available, and redirections are working normally.

This means that only tools or services which make use of the Tr.im API will be able to use it, for the rest of them it is goodbye.

For me, URL shortening was never going to be a huge business, and there are literally tons of services which will do the job, it is just that Tr.im did not get their business model right and bit.ly did, which is why they are now the leaders in the URL shortening market.

Thanks for the tip @vipinonline