Scripting News - Latest Comments in Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

tojosan — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:40:40 -0000

Portable Shortened URLs - interesting idea.
I like the idea of being able to attach any URL to a tweet over the constant addition of new shorteners. That said, allowing me to host my own URL shortener for my tweets works for me as well for the short term.

The big problem is that shorteners will change over time. Some will survive, some will die, the rest will be absorbed. Even if I create my own those have a limited life span.

Perhaps a different plan? Twitter stores the full length URL behind the shortened one. If the shortener goes away, the client could send the shortened URL to Twitter for a lookup.

More options?

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

iptiam — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:18:40 -0000

The other problem I have with shortened URLs is, you mostly have no idea where you are being taken to.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Austin ☃ Passy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:50:17 -0000

I just wrote a post about this on my site. But it's more in regards to turning all the Twitter to WordPress publishing plugins into a self shortening domain, ie. the default permalink style.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

tdhurst — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:30:51 -0000

Yes.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Chad — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:19:38 -0000

How are these sites going to continue with out the ability to monetize themselves? I just started using http://teeny.me. I really like it, it's simple, but it's not integrated into twitter yet. Maybe in the future?

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Rui — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:20:58 -0000

Enough with tiny URLs! I am tired of being rick roll'd!!

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

dave — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:15:21 -0000

He's going to say he's not ignoring and then where do we go?

This is a very small issue. You guys should resolve it via email. Please.

Dave

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:05:50 -0000

Robert, no offense, but we're saying the same thing -- you're ignoring the last sentence of my comment, "My understanding is that Twitter only shortens a URL if it's over 30 characters long." As your link is 85 characters long, it was shortened. Were it 30 characters long, Twitter would not have shortened it.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:29:30 -0000

Robert, I have no idea how you post to Twitter, but Twitter does *not* auto-shorten all URLs; there are literally thousands of present examples to show otherwise:

http://twitter.com/freddieo...
http://twitter.com/fraying/...
http://twitter.com/hamuella...

My understanding is that Twitter only shortens a URL if it's over 30 characters long.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

dave — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:03:22 -0000

You can shorten the URL as it goes thru the SMS gateway, otherwise it stays
native length

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:37:49 -0000

Everyone who tries to say how easy it is to create a link is missing the fact that Twitter has a 140-character limit for a reason -- SMS messaging limits. If you want to create and store actual, long URLs in tweets, then you're going to have to count every character against that 140-char limit... because while on a webpage/iPhone client/whatever, it's easy to hyperlink a word, but via SMS you have to send the whole link for the recipient to know what the heck you're talking about.

So, a lot of people need to reframe how they're thinking about this: how do you allow for the *entire* context of a tweet to be represented in 140 pure-text characters? No HTML, no hyperlinks, nothing else -- just pure text.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

evansolomon — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:27:13 -0000

Can you provide a little more context for this? I did some searching and haven't come up with a reason for a change of opinion re: bit.ly. Thanks

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Greg Hewgill — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 03:19:55 -0000

I had this same idea a while ago: http://hewgill.com/journal/...

I also never liked the tendency for link shorteners to obscure where you're going, and created http://lnk.nu to try to mitigate that (shortened links contain the original domain name).

But the time of link shorteners has passed. The web is built on URLs, let's keep it that way.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Timothy Post — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:39:59 -0000

Su.pr allows you to use your own domain to shorten URLs from your own blog. While this is an excellent first step, Dave is right, the time has come for short URL companies to enable users to create a CNAME for a sub-domain, which they already own and then use that sub-domain as the base domain in the short URL. While this would obviously increase the number of characters for most "custom short URLs" it would provide a measure of safety.

Additionally, I would like to see short URL companies give users the opportunity to export/import a simple file which lists all the short URLs and all the external destination URLs. Dave, I'm sure that you know how this export/import option can be implemented technically.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

reiver — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:52:53 -0000

Dave, you said...
"It's time for Twitter to add a simple feature to their platform that allows users to attach a URL of arbitrary length to a message, without using up any of the 140 characters."

The problem with that is that the 140 character limit is there because Twitter was designed to work with SMS text messaging on mobile phone. And with SMS text messaging you have a 140 character limit for international text messages. And thus Twitter has a 140 character limit because international SMS text messaging has a 140 character limit.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Nic — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:26:35 -0000

Yep. I work for a big news producer . We got worried about URL shorteners so built our own for when we need to do this. It gives us control over statistics, service up-time and everything. We started it before your comments about the NYTimes, but you spurred us on. The tr.im situation has made us realise our wisdom - and yours. thanks go to you for having helped guide us.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Imokon — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:17:34 -0000

Let me clarify, using Twitter Friendly Links in conjunction with other plug-ins. I haven't heard of it on my initial search on plugins that generate custom urls using personal domains - but will look into it. thanks for the heads up.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Ari Herzog — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:16:05 -0000

How do you figure "not automated" when I use http://wordpress.org/extend... on my blog to automatically create and tweet links like http://ariwriter.com/mn

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

teachj — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:12:49 -0000

Honestly, it's not that hard. All they have to do is allow users to create a link in their Tweet just like any other HTML document - say like blogs. You highlight the text and then click on the link tool and embed your link. Lots of people already know how to do it. They could even have a short video how to on their main Twitter page.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Joe Moreno — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:15:05 -0000

Dave,

Adjix has been allowing people to point their sub-domains at us since we launched a year ago. Plus, you extolled some of our greatest features this past Spring:
http://www.scripting.com/st...

- Joe

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Peter Renshaw — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:13:27 -0000

"... It's time for Twitter to add a simple feature to their platform that allows users to attach a URL of arbitrary length to a message, without using up any of the 140 characters ..."

You would have thought this have been attempted before now. It exposes the *optomised* mindset of the developers. The idea of pointing a twit comment somewhere is the basis of html, ahref (comment + url = link) and it's a pretty simple concept to understand. Make what users want, but do a good job of it. Software is after all an artificial construct. You don't have to mess up the simple interface, just accept "http://foo.bar/very/large/u..." into the box & strip it out, save it as a link & represent the link with the message or next to it.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

Imokon — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:02:38 -0000

I'm not sure what you mean, I was specifically talking about the 'Twitter friendly Links" plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend...

I don't believe it depends on 3rd party shorteners, more like just creating temporary redirect urls using your domain.

I just couldn't work it to post directly to Twitter, must be a plugin incompatibility issue I haven't explored yet.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

garrick Van Buren — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:13:18 -0000

if you're running wordpress, there's little need for a 3rd party shortener. everything you need is already there.

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

AAfter Search — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:47:44 -0000

This is a good one..Hope it will fly..

Re: Enough with shortened URLs (Scripting News)

AAfter Search — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:39:35 -0000

We really need an 'Internet like' solution for short URL and Twitter services..
Until then, enter your long url at AAfter search box, and we create two fail-safe short urls...