Remember several months ago when both Google and Facebook decided to get into the URL shortening game? We wondered if Bit.ly, the market leader, was fu.kd? And we were hardly alone.

But nearly a year later, it seems like they’re doing more than fine as neither Facebook nor Google seemed to take their shortener too

A quick disclosure: readers of my last book will be familiar with the story (which you can read here) of London-based entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith.

Smith co-founded boy’s toys e-tailer Firebox.com straight out of university, before moving on to launch an interactive puzzle start-up called