This is why URL shortening services are a very bad idea | The Coffeehouse

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

I know I'm repeating myself, but today I read something that really demonstrates why URL shortening services are a very bad idea: What if one of the services shuts down? tr.im:

tr.im is now in the process of discontinuing service, effective immediately.
Statistics can no longer be considered reliable, or reliably available going forward.
However, all tr.im links will continue to redirect, and will do so until at least December 31, 2009.
Your tweets with tr.im URLs in them will not be affected.

We regret that it came to this, but all of our efforts to avoid it failed.
No business we approached wanted to purchase tr.im for even a minor amount.

There is no way for us to monetize URL shortening -- users won't pay for it -- and we just can't
justify further development since Twitter has all but annointed bit.ly the market winner.
There is simply no point for us to continue operating tr.im, and pay for its upkeep.

We apologize for the disruption and inconvenience this may cause you.

What does this mean? That all the links that were shortified via this service will no longer work. The world wide web (that relies on hyperlinked pages) gets damaged.

stevo_
Human after all

Yep, I honestly don't see any plus points to them.. ooo big scary urls!

rhm

I don't understand why everyone uses bit.ly when is.gd is shorter.

leeappdalecom
.nettter

In reply to rhm

#Aug 10th @ 3:12 AM

I always thought they was pointless until Twitter came along and really hated it when podcasters read out tiny url links in the show. Just link to the full URL on your site, simple.

Twitter does make them useful but id still rather put a full URL is space allows.

spivonious

I've honestly never heard of tr.im, bit.ly, or is.gd. Shortening of URLs is a silly service anyway. It's not like you have to type the link; just copy and paste it.

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to spivonious

#Aug 10th @ 6:18 AM

I steared clear 'cos my spidey-senses told me this was bad news: a layer of service over a core standard only supported by private companies without any standardisation? Hmm. I don't like it ....

Herbie

staceyw
Before C# there was darkness...

I see same thing with bit.ly. What happens when that guy gets interested in something else, or gets sick or tired of doing it. A company like godaddy or something needs to do it if you want long lasting support.

PerfectPhase
"This is not war, this is pest control!" - Dalek to Cyberman

In reply to staceyw

#Aug 10th @ 7:15 AM

Or they decide every thrid click is going via an ad page or something, or they are going to load your page in a frame loaded with ads etc....

LeoDavidson

In reply to leeappdalecom

#Aug 10th @ 4:00 AM

IMO it's better to not use Twitter than put bandaids on it. Plenty of other ways to communicate which people can subscribe to. I still don't get it.

wkempf

While I agree, I also think this blows the topic out of proportion.

1. Links become broken all the time on the web, when pages are moved or even just plain removed.

2. Shortened URLs are generally not put on web pages. The fact that a "hey, see http://foo" tweet is no longer valid isn't much of a loss. Tweets are not really mean to be long lived, IMHO.

URL shortening through services is certainly a bit of a broken idea for many reasons, but the fact that we're losing a service that does this isn't really all that important.

Ray7

tr.im said:
There is no way for us to monetize URL shortening -- users won't pay for it

... and you didn't realise this before you started?

PaoloM
Hypermediocrity

In reply to Ray7

#Aug 10th @ 9:20 AM

Not only that, but the balls of saying "No business we approached wanted to purchase tr.im for even a minor amount." are a spectacle to be seen.

When I see stuff like this happening, I am happy. I am happy that projects like this fail. I am happy that people lost money. I am happy that being stupid is not rewarded anymore.

Joseph Hawkings

Allow me to be the oddball out here, but there's more to shortening services than just shortening your URL. Services like Bit.ly and Tr.im allowed users to actually monitor the traffic the goes through the links. If you're a news source or advertising company, wouldn't you like to know how many people are clicking your links. My local news stations and papers all use bit.ly and they are able to see how many people actually click on a link, which would be important to them.

Though knowing the creators of Tr.im actually stated "No business we approached wanted to purchase tr.im for even a minor amount" just goes to show how questionable the services actually are during the current economy. Its a shame that the developers had to lose money for a convenient service, but the economy is having a hard time supporting new businesses, especially where there is already a market holder (in this case Bit.ly).

As far as being a bad idea, it's not. 6 months down the road, you'll have found a new URL shortening service and been using that. Yes, if people go back 6 months looking at your posts they won't work, but odds are if people do a search for the topic they'll find out right now. Usually the trends are slightly more interesting and have some correlation to the news, but it would appear right now it's an odd time... so whenever the more "newsworthy" stuff gets to the top then this'll apply: usually if you search Google News you will be able to find out why something is trending... it's not always the case, but down the road if someone sees your post on Michael Jackson, Google Voice, or iPhone they can just go to Google News search for the topic, set the date range and voila... you know what the was a twitter. *gasping for air* Sorry, horrible run on sentence there....

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

In reply to Joseph Hawkings

#Aug 10th @ 11:57 AM

There are other ways to track how many people click a link or visit a page, and where they came from. (Google Analytics, StatCounter, …)

Joseph Hawkings

In reply to TommyCarlier

#Aug 10th @ 12:01 PM

Not everyone has access to edit the source of a web page, especially if you're linking to an article on the New York Times or some other website.

Ray7

In reply to PaoloM

#Aug 10th @ 11:43 AM

Yes strangely enough, I can't seem to muster any sympathy for them.

Harlequin
http://twitter.com/TrueHarlequin

I just don't know why Twitter( an example) doesn't have a textbox under your message with "Link:" so you can add a link...instead of forcing users to make it part of the message. But you could also say the same about hashes, etc.

intelman

I like URL shortening. Some mail cients (outlook) do not wrap large links correctly. I frequently get emails back saying "the link doesn't work".

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to Harlequin

#Aug 11th @ 7:20 AM

I assumed that was because Twitter was originally designed to use SMS texting from mobile phones -- where you want everything to be in one single message entry.

Herbie

LeoDavidson

In reply to intelman

#Aug 11th @ 7:47 AM

I've found Outlook handles that well. On a chatty mailing list I'm on I often re-post fixed versions of other people's broken long URLs, using Outlook, so that everyone else can click them.

It does my head in that some popular mail clients still cannot generate proper MIME quoted-printable mail (and/or don't do it by default) in this day & age. Outlook seems fine though. Maybe it has problems which I've just managed to avoid triggering. Or maybe it depends on the format (I usually send in "plain text") or on how the email is mangled by other things (anti-virus adding junk to the bottom of the email, mailing list software, or the client at the other end)? Seems good to me, though. FWIW. YMMV. HAND. Smiley

exoteric
I : Next<I>

The problem is not only with URI aliasing but with URIs in general. URI aliasing only compounds the problem of dead links. Thankfully there's still the wayback machine. Search engines should help out here and provide APIs to help unalias links systematically. Next browsers should use these APIs to pre-emptively avoid dead links caused by aliasing death. Now get to work people.

exoteric
I : Next<I>

In reply to exoteric

#Aug 11th @ 8:46 AM

... And for browsers that don't implement this, search engines can provide a translation layer.

intelman

In reply to LeoDavidson

#Aug 11th @ 8:23 AM

Well most of the time, not all the time.

Dodo
I'm your creativity creator™ :)

tr.im is a joke. They wanted to sell their service, because running an URL shortening service doesn't provide any revenue. And since noone wnated to buy it for a reasonable 4 figure price... they're shutting it down... heck, it should cost like 50 bucks a year to run such a service... at most... that's nothing.

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