Simplest bit.ly API implementation possible?

To use an URL shortener in your project, I would strongly recommend bit.ly. It let you set a custom URL (name) and track traffic, clicks and conversations on micro blogs. But best of all, it should be super-fast and super-stable, since Twitter recently chose bit.ly as their default URL shortening service.

Using the bit.ly REST API is also super-easy! Here is how you do it in Rails:

Sign up to get your API username/password here.
Get HTTParty if you don’t already use it: sudo gem install httparty

Copy the code:

require 'httparty'
class Bitly
  include HTTParty
  base_uri 'api.bit.ly'
  basic_auth 'username', 'password'
  format :json
  def self.shorten(url)
    response = get('/shorten', :query => required_params.merge(:longUrl => url))
    response['results'][url]['shortUrl']
  end
  def self.required_params
    {:version => "2.0.1"}
  end
end

Paste code into lib/bitly.rb. Usage: Bitly.shorten(”longurl”)

This is perfect for, as an example Tweeting your URL’s. (I will get back to our Twitter API implementation at Newsdesk.)

The complete bit.ly API docs are here: http://code.google.com/p/bitly-api/wiki/ApiDocumentation

To extend and share this class - use my Gist: http://gist.github.com/112191

This entry was written by Richard, posted on July 2, 2009 at 6:03 pm, filed under Ruby on Rails, Services and tagged bit.ly, Ruby on Rails, twitter. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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