rel="shortlink" - URL shortening that doesn't hurt the internet

Re:rel="shortlink" - URL shortening that doesn't hurt the in... by trezor on Monday August 17, 2009 @05:02AM (#767671)

I was about to make a post about how I wanted twitter dead to end all this useless noise about URL shorteners.

Then I realized that the reason there is noise here is that some people actually seem to think they have something to offer the world which the real URL wouldn't do.

Can someone who are actually willing to defend these things explain to me why you consider a short URL more useful than the original? What motivation you have for adding third parties to what could be a standard hyperlink?

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Re:rel="shortlink" - URL shortening that doesn't hurt the in... by ubernostrum on Monday August 17, 2009 @09:42AM (#768082)

The two most common uses I've seen are:

1. Huge unwieldy URLs like the ones you get from Google Maps, which may get mangled by email clients.

2. Easy-to-type URLs to put in slides for presentations, since people in the audience can't click on the things you're showing them.

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Re:rel="shortlink" - URL shortening that doesn't hurt the in... by sjs382 on Monday August 17, 2009 @05:26AM (#767714)

If it's short enough, it can be easily read over the phone.

If similar looking characters are removed (1 or I; 0 or O), they can be easily noted in a notebook without confusion.

These are just two alternate uses...

[ Parent | on HN ]