While URL shorteners such as Bit.ly have been growing rapidly due to the rise of Twitter, others have been left in the dust. Tr.im has gone open source after shutting down in dramatic fashion. More recently, Cli.gs announced that it was shutting down.
Cli.gs is rising from the ashes though, much like Tr.im. Today the URL shortener announced that social bookmarking service Mister Wong has acquired Cli.gs. Mister Wong will now operate the Cli.gs URL shortener.
From the Cli.gs announcement:
"When I announced that Cligs was to shut down, I was contacted by several parties interested in taking over the service. I’d like to thank all of these people who were all very supportive of the service and wanted to keep Cligs running. I’d like to also thank all the users who contacted me privately and publicly to show their support and appreciation of Cligs.
I only considered serious buyers who would obviously take good care of Cligs’ existing users. For that, Mister Wong is a great choice and a large part of why they won out. Kai Tietjen, founder of Mister Wong, summarized their motivation by saying that, "Cligs is a complete service with a unique set of tools and a solid user base. Competition is healthy for the market and it would be a real shame to see such a useful service disappear. We are happy to add Cligs to our existing portfolio of Web 2.0 services and we look forward to welcoming all its users to the Wong family."
The hand-over work is already in progress and close to completion. Of course, I will continue working with the team at Mister Wong to ensure everything is running smoothly and correctly. We do not expect any interruptions during the hand-over, but please do let us know if you encounter anything out of the ordinary."