Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Mạc Phong — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:57:40 -0000

good site http://thegioinet.org

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Internet Threat — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:32:27 -0000

URL shorteners are an unnecessary quirk of Twitter's interface that are not good for the web.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Correct Theory — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:18:25 -0000

For your reference, here is a list URL shortening or related websites:

http://similar-site.com/s.p...

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

BrakeItUp — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:27:38 -0000

One reason why they're not.

http://uurl.in/yanarp

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Me — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:11:44 -0000

And the bad side: When the service goes down, no one is able to visit your links thru Twitter or wherever you used them. IF URL shortening, then set up your own service.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Wizzyfx — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:58:37 -0000

Here's a very quick one. OneSpin is probably the fastest among all url shorteners. No copy & paste, no plug ins or add-ons. Just use the address bar itself. Append 1sp.in at the end of the hostname and it will shrink automatically. See http://www.1sp.in

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Reino — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:38:55 -0000

I personally use http://veeox.com . You brought out some great points here, but the last part on if one got hacked into is a great worry ... imagine the mess.... however, how long would it last? they would restore database backups wouldn't they?

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

RecycledBottle — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:25:13 -0000

I have been reading up on the pros and cons of URL shorteners. One con people mention is that the URL connection may be lost. While true, one also has to answer - are all the short URLs we are posting important? Microblogs and public facing blogs are mostly disposible content anyway.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Glenn Friesen — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:23:32 -0000

The shortest URL shortener available: tweak.tk
Second place, three way tie: U.NU, A.GD, R.IM

I love 'em.

http://www.glennfriesen.com...

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Nir — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:27:31 -0000

Er, not to get into the argument, but if you need to unshorten short URLs you might find this Web service useful: http://therealurl.appspot.com/ (supports JSON too. Enjoy :))

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

mz — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:13:26 -0000

Why this page ranked well better than mashable with Same content!!
keyword search: track and compile url click data
site: http://www.spinell.se/5-rea...
why?

Anyway, bit.ly is down :(

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Raj — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:38:24 -0000

We recently launched a new website that provides a URL shortening service for "multiple" websites:

http://www.viewista.com

Viewista creates a short URL for “multiple” websites. Plus, you can view the multiple sites all at once. We think it can be a real time-saver. You can also post comments on the sites and share with your friends, making it a social URL sharing service. Viewista can be particularly useful on Twitter because a user can create a short URL for multiple sites on a topic without having to use multiple tweets.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

David Marshall — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:51:14 -0000

Here's a new offering to the shortURL/Twitter thing: http://twitt.at - it's basically the same as shortURL, but alot quicker to get your URL! Nice and simple looking too.. no gimmicks.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

jaypiddy — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:12:48 -0000

I make a case in a blog post on how they actually defeat having paid and protected your branded url for so long. As well they are pretty much useless for search.

http://powershiftermedia.co... Don't worry irony of the long url is not lost on me;)

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

John Beck — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:39:40 -0000

Hiz,

Such a Great Point thats has been DIsucssed by the Owner, thats why Twitter and Friendfeed auto converts the links into Tiny or short URL like its alwayz show my links like http://ff.im/-1Ybco

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Joe Fox — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:57:06 -0000

1. If a url is inordinately long, as they can be in blogs, it is useful. 2. If you want to keep private your intent until they get to your site, tinyurl's are useful. 3. my favorite, you can customize a tinyurl to ID your site - here's a couple of mine: http://tinyurl.com/totalwea... and http://tinyurl.com/localadl... this is great for individual pages/posts in a blog or to refer to someone else's site. Well there's 3 reasons of my own.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

James Ostheimer — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:59:42 -0000

5 reasons shortened urls are BAD:

1. Security
2. No branding
3. All path data is lost (think permalinks)
4. No backups (what happens to twitter if tinyurl folds?)
5. Security!!!

Security twice b/c Rick Rolling is not the worst thing that can happen for shortened urls, phishing is made 100x's of times easier with shortened urls.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Guest — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:45:09 -0000

I seem to be using them more and more each day. My main reason for using them is that the links look neater when putting them in an email / small message.

PS The link in the first sentence of the article to bit.ly is wrong.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Rachel Burkot — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:21:39 -0000

I can see the benefits of URL shorteners from your points. I think they are definitely necessary for social media sites like Twitter, which place a great emphasis on conciseness. I don't see anything wrong with using URL shorteners. They just seem to make life on the web a whole lot simpler. Are there any downsides?

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

personne — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:10:57 -0000

The solution to long URLs in twitter as solved long ago. href links. You know, specific keywords that the link refer to with the link itself embedded and showing up in the status bar for anyone who wants to know without committing to anything. Yes, twitter would benefit from that new invention, hypertext, rather than reinventing it. As for what services "could" exist with all these redirected, obfuscated URLs, I don't think we need any more clumping and middlemen on the internet. Sites already have good analysis tools, everyone else shouldn't be snooping at what their contacts are looking at.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

eddiebovak — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:32:42 -0000

Don't forget the URL Compressor! http://ur.lc/

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Eric the Red — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:25:45 -0000

And when the company hosting the URL shortener service folds, YOU ARE LEFT WITH NOTHING.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

DarinTait — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:25:26 -0000

Nice overview of the shorteners. Still dont get the advantage of tinyurl over bit.ly. As there are quite some around now, newcomers need to add new features to get an edge. Pagetweet takes the link sending in a nice new direction, with it's commenting function. Hope to see more of this kind.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Steve Nagata — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:34:40 -0000

Another use for URL shorteners is for use in encoding to barcode or QR code graphics. Reducing the number of characters used is key in keeping the barcodes simple and easy to recognize.
compressed URLs enable barcodes to target hard to reach areas of a website without complicating the graphic and make the output look neater.

Re: 5 Reasons Why URL Shorteners Are Useful

Andy Baio — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:46:46 -0000

"In an article this week, Delicious founder Joshua Schachter made some very compelling arguments for how cigarettes might kill you or your loved ones. However, I want to make some points for the opposite argument: that cigarettes are really awesome. Cigarettes feel good to smoke, relieve stress, and make you look cool to girls."