In 09 we have made 2 very cool updates to Social Media for Firefox. In Feb we added Twitter, Sphinn and Mixx. This lets you hit the manual button on any URL you are on and see how many Tweets it has had. In other words it lets you see how many people have posted your link on Twitter. (There are a million short url services and we are working frantically to add the most prominent in so numbers might be a little off until then)

Today I’m announcing that we have added Bit.ly the Short URL service and I am really excited about the time it is going to save you. Here is how it works.

After installing the new version, Right Click on the manual button and follow the steps to configure Bit.ly by adding in your info and api key.

Then go to any URL and click on the Bit.ly Icon

Then a box will pop up that shows the new Shortened Bit.ly url in it, hit ok that closes the box and saves the link to your clipboard at the same time.

Then go to Twitter or where ever you want to post the URL and hit paste and done the link has been shortened and added into your Bit.ly account stats automatically.

Now after you have posted the link, you can go back to the url you shortened at anytime and hit the manual button. This will load two sets of stats one showing how many hits you have sent to that url and the second showing how many stats in total have been sent to the url from all Bit.ly users. Gives you your influence numbers without always having to login or go to your Bit.ly page and also gives you an idea on how viral or how well that bit of content is doing.

Example

I tweeted a link from Mashable a little while back, and I sent it 897 hits and it got a total of 9,955 hits from Bit.ly. The post got much more traffic than that I am sure but it is pretty cool to at least get some kind of idea as to how popular it was and see your influence in that at the same time.

Remember if you don’t use all the services that are a part of SMFF you can remove them by Right Clicking on manual and configuring your settings to save more real estate in your status bar.

You can download the new version here. If you want more info on Social Media for Firefox see the video below.

***Please add reviews at the Firefox Addons page, I have been lazy and need to get it out of the sandbox there so I can have more freedom with it.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed, or follow Chris Bennett on Twitter and make sure you check out our free analytics product BLVD Status and Social Media for FireFox Which is used by more than 500,000 marketers

Aside from 97th Floor, I co-own an action sports news site called 5ones and a live analytics company called BLVD Status.

This week 5ones launched a very cool project that we have been working on for a very long time (initial idea Jul 08). It is called, “5ones Earth” and it is an interactive Google Maps mashup that organizes all of the worlds Surf Spots, Skate Spots, Ski/Snowboard Resorts, Pro Shops and Company Headquarters. The idea is if you are in Hawaii on vacation and you are not familiar with the local surf spots you can do a search and the application will bring back all the relevant results to your search and give you specific information on the break as well as directions. Or if you are in need of some gear you can search for a shop. Maybe you want to find a place to skate while you are visiting friends in a different state? Whatever it is we hope to organize it and share it with everyone.

Check it out and if you are into action sports and have some spots to add then please do so to help it grow and also so you can enter into the contest which has over $1,000 worth of free gear.

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If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed, or follow Chris Bennett on Twitter and make sure you check out our free analytics product BLVD Status and Social Media for FireFox Which is used by more than 500,000 marketers