4 ms·

Solving the TinyUrl centralization problem

20 points by nreece 18y ago

dcurtis 18y ago
There are two things to take into consideration here. I agree with the premise of what the author is saying, that URLs should be as short as possible, but I also think URLs should be informative as well. The amazon.com/wii url is great because it contains information about where you're going. If that was amazon.com/sD5E, I would have no idea where it's going to send me. This is the biggest problem with Tinyurl, I think. URLs should be as simple and short as possible but not too simple and short. It should still tell me where I'm going, just extremely succinctly. I see developers make this mistake all the time. They make their URLs look like this: http://example.com/users/dcurtis/profile http://example.com/users/dcurtis/profile . That has at least 14 useless characters in it. It could be changed to http://example.com/dcurtis http://example.com/dcurtis with no loss at all, because /users and /profile both are useless structural information.
- gry 18y ago
  As always, it depends. Arguably, http://example.com/users/dcurtis/profile http://example.com/users/dcurtis/profile is short, but not too short. If a website/service is centered around people, it makes _more_ sense. Else, the longer URLs seem to make more sense. http://www.amazon.com/wii http://www.amazon.com/wii is only as useful as someone knowing what the Wii is. I wouldn't consider the users and profile namespaces a mistake. People get cute and it can create a large constraint how your architecture works. Also, URLs structures as such are often a result of some framework behind it. http://example.com/model/controller/view http://example.com/model/controller/view. It expedites development and managing code something fierce. Perhaps there is opportunity for a shortening widget within the MVC pattern. I need to think about it -- or let other smarter people than me think about it. :) http://www.amazon.com/shamwow http://www.amazon.com/shamwow is invalid, along with the other permutations I tried. Amazon doesn't have core shortening service, it seems. I think the issue is more around URLs which can be parsed by a human vs the proverbial querystring. A TinyURL solves technical problems and looks nicer which is 2/3 of the way there. The remainder makes sense to a person.
  - dcurtis 18y ago
    You can't use the excuse that "the software urges me to do it this way, so I'll make the user's experience suffer." As a developer of user-centric software, it is totally your responsibility to do al the hard work for the user. That includes the couple lines in your routes file to fix the /model/controller/view default. /users and /profile do not ever have extra information, except in extreme cases where you have /users and /aliens and /pants that your app is centralized around.
    - jaaron 18y ago
      /users and /profile could easily have extra information. a GET /users could provide a list of all users. the /users/dcurtis might be the blog or home page, while /users/dcurtis/profile is specifically the person's profile. Having a hierarchical resource namespace makes plenty of sense in many contexts. If nothing else, it's more likely to be long lived because it makes URL redirection easier in the future if the system changes. When version 2 of the site software comes out, someone can easily redirect all the /profile urls to a legacy system or parse them into the new system. Whereas a flat namespace is much harder to migrate and keep constant. And besides, we shouldn't confuse the two issues of readable URLs and short alias URLs. Both have very legitimate uses.
      - dcurtis 18y ago
        You're right that /dcurtis could have different information. But I am talking about webapps that would return a 404 for http://example.com/users http://example.com/users . The vast majority of major apps do not use urls the way you described. Unless you absolutely positively have to have another extra layer of url hierarchy, and you can justify it extremely well, please don't. It's just a burden on the user when they go to share/copy/read it.
  - whatusername 18y ago
    amazon.com/books worked for me.. Imagine the namespace collisions if every product that amazon sold could shorten like that. Categories break down nicely though.. eg wii, books, even garden
jrockway 18y ago
Long URLs don't bother me. The actual URL is an implementation detail for the computer. As a user, all I should see is an underlined description of the link. When I click it, the computer takes me where I need to go. It doesn't care how long the URL is, because it just doesn't matter that much. I have successfully cut-n-pasted long URLs into IRC, Email, and IM, and it has never not worked. It may be a bit ugly, but who really cares?
- jgfoot 18y ago
  One time when URL shortening is useful is for paper. I write legal briefs that sometimes have to cite to web pages, and for that URL shortening services are very useful. You can't expect a human reader to type in 200+ character URLs.
jgfoot 18y ago
TinyUrl is run by one dude in Minnesota, an avid unicyclist named <a href="http://www.gilby.com/whois.html http://www.gilby.com/whois.html">Kevin Gilbertson</a>. It gets 1.75 billion hits per month. How long is this going to last?
- unalone 18y ago
  Is there any reason that it won't last just because it's a one-man shop? He's kept it going strong this far.
  - jgfoot 18y ago
    It's tied to the life, and devotion, of one person. He could get sick, he could die without making arrangements, he could stop being able to pay his server bills.
    - whughes 18y ago
      He could, but is there any reason to assume that he will? There's always out-of-nowhere conditions that can kill off an operation. He appears to be having no trouble thus far, so I don't see any reason to predict that he will encounter trouble without a basis in reality.
- anamax 18y ago
  > It gets 1.75 billion hits per month. How long is this going to last? How long has it lasted? What is going to kill it that hasn't killed it yet?
TweedHeads 18y ago
the solution has been at our fingertips since the web was born: a href="longurl" : shorttext
thorax 18y ago
Services are already doing some of this. TipJoy can do their own URL shortner, FriendFeed has ff.im, Posterous has post.ly, etc. This is getting pretty common. If you're not going to make your own, and are obsessed with shortness, though, we just launched our own shrinker: http://tinyarro.ws http://tinyarro.ws http://➡.ws/퐐 http://➡.ws/퐐

20 points by nreece 18y ago

There are two things to take into consideration here. I agree with the premise of what the author is saying, that URLs should be as short as possible, but I also think URLs should be informative as well. The amazon.com/wii url is great because it contains information about where you're going. If that was amazon.com/sD5E, I would have no idea where it's going to send me. This is the biggest problem with Tinyurl, I think. URLs should be as simple and short as possible but not too simple and short. It should still tell me where I'm going, just extremely succinctly. I see developers make this mistake all the time. They make their URLs look like this: http://example.com/users/dcurtis/profile http://example.com/users/dcurtis/profile . That has at least 14 useless characters in it. It could be changed to http://example.com/dcurtis http://example.com/dcurtis with no loss at all, because /users and /profile both are useless structural information.

gry 18y ago
As always, it depends. Arguably, http://example.com/users/dcurtis/profile http://example.com/users/dcurtis/profile is short, but not too short. If a website/service is centered around people, it makes _more_ sense. Else, the longer URLs seem to make more sense. http://www.amazon.com/wii http://www.amazon.com/wii is only as useful as someone knowing what the Wii is. I wouldn't consider the users and profile namespaces a mistake. People get cute and it can create a large constraint how your architecture works. Also, URLs structures as such are often a result of some framework behind it. http://example.com/model/controller/view http://example.com/model/controller/view. It expedites development and managing code something fierce. Perhaps there is opportunity for a shortening widget within the MVC pattern. I need to think about it -- or let other smarter people than me think about it. :) http://www.amazon.com/shamwow http://www.amazon.com/shamwow is invalid, along with the other permutations I tried. Amazon doesn't have core shortening service, it seems. I think the issue is more around URLs which can be parsed by a human vs the proverbial querystring. A TinyURL solves technical problems and looks nicer which is 2/3 of the way there. The remainder makes sense to a person.
- dcurtis 18y ago
  You can't use the excuse that "the software urges me to do it this way, so I'll make the user's experience suffer." As a developer of user-centric software, it is totally your responsibility to do al the hard work for the user. That includes the couple lines in your routes file to fix the /model/controller/view default. /users and /profile do not ever have extra information, except in extreme cases where you have /users and /aliens and /pants that your app is centralized around.
  - jaaron 18y ago
    /users and /profile could easily have extra information. a GET /users could provide a list of all users. the /users/dcurtis might be the blog or home page, while /users/dcurtis/profile is specifically the person's profile. Having a hierarchical resource namespace makes plenty of sense in many contexts. If nothing else, it's more likely to be long lived because it makes URL redirection easier in the future if the system changes. When version 2 of the site software comes out, someone can easily redirect all the /profile urls to a legacy system or parse them into the new system. Whereas a flat namespace is much harder to migrate and keep constant. And besides, we shouldn't confuse the two issues of readable URLs and short alias URLs. Both have very legitimate uses.
    - dcurtis 18y ago
      You're right that /dcurtis could have different information. But I am talking about webapps that would return a 404 for http://example.com/users http://example.com/users . The vast majority of major apps do not use urls the way you described. Unless you absolutely positively have to have another extra layer of url hierarchy, and you can justify it extremely well, please don't. It's just a burden on the user when they go to share/copy/read it.
- whatusername 18y ago
  amazon.com/books worked for me.. Imagine the namespace collisions if every product that amazon sold could shorten like that. Categories break down nicely though.. eg wii, books, even garden

jrockway 18y ago

Long URLs don't bother me. The actual URL is an implementation detail for the computer. As a user, all I should see is an underlined description of the link. When I click it, the computer takes me where I need to go. It doesn't care how long the URL is, because it just doesn't matter that much. I have successfully cut-n-pasted long URLs into IRC, Email, and IM, and it has never not worked. It may be a bit ugly, but who really cares?

jgfoot 18y ago
One time when URL shortening is useful is for paper. I write legal briefs that sometimes have to cite to web pages, and for that URL shortening services are very useful. You can't expect a human reader to type in 200+ character URLs.

jgfoot 18y ago

TinyUrl is run by one dude in Minnesota, an avid unicyclist named <a href="http://www.gilby.com/whois.html http://www.gilby.com/whois.html">Kevin Gilbertson</a>. It gets 1.75 billion hits per month. How long is this going to last?

unalone 18y ago
Is there any reason that it won't last just because it's a one-man shop? He's kept it going strong this far.
- jgfoot 18y ago
  It's tied to the life, and devotion, of one person. He could get sick, he could die without making arrangements, he could stop being able to pay his server bills.
  - whughes 18y ago
    He could, but is there any reason to assume that he will? There's always out-of-nowhere conditions that can kill off an operation. He appears to be having no trouble thus far, so I don't see any reason to predict that he will encounter trouble without a basis in reality.
anamax 18y ago
> It gets 1.75 billion hits per month. How long is this going to last? How long has it lasted? What is going to kill it that hasn't killed it yet?

TweedHeads 18y ago

the solution has been at our fingertips since the web was born: a href="longurl" : shorttext

thorax 18y ago

Services are already doing some of this. TipJoy can do their own URL shortner, FriendFeed has ff.im, Posterous has post.ly, etc. This is getting pretty common. If you're not going to make your own, and are obsessed with shortness, though, we just launched our own shrinker: http://tinyarro.ws http://tinyarro.ws http://➡.ws/퐐 http://➡.ws/퐐