3 ms·

This is a great idea. Does anyone know if any of the existing URL shortners do it? You could then differentiate your service by having a very minimal ui, since

This is a great idea. Does anyone know if any of the existing URL shortners do it? You could then differentiate your service by having a very minimal ui, since you'd no longer be dependant on advertising for revenue.

moe 18y ago
You could then differentiate your service I'm don't think there's any room for differentiation left in the tinyurl space. There are literally hundreds of such services and some of them work without an UI altogether (see the firefox addon for http://is.gd http://is.gd). Maybe, just maybe, you could set yourself apart by integrating tinypic, tinyurl and tinyvideo(?) or such into a neat package, and adding some whipcream features on top - but honestly, I'm very doubtful that there's any money in this.
- thorax 18y ago
  Well, people said that before we launched tinyarro.ws and I think that was different enough to catch people's attention. There are probably a few ideas out there left to try.
thorax 18y ago
I don't think that's a very warming idea. Feels kind of shady to me. Another step further and I'm expecting the service to remove other people's affiliate IDs and adding their own. On other fronts, we offer one approach on tinyurl "differentiation" via http://tinyarro.ws http://tinyarro.ws (super-small unicode URLs). For minimalists, we did http://ri.ms http://ri.ms. Not an overabundance of room nowadays to differentiate. But with TinyArrows, the concept is interesting enough to people that it has taken on a life of its own on Twitter, and we actually get a little traffic out of it to our other sites. But it's not enough traffic that I could recommend people spend much time on their own URL shrinkers (unless they're just bored and have a really compelling idea). I suggest using the services as a feeder for leads for your other products-- I personally see the affiliate thing as a bit shady. The only cool place to do it is in those awful spam emails that spammers overload the URL shrinkers with to hide their target site-- you could steal their revenue. But then you're making money off of spam...
- mickt 18y ago
  Tiny's not working properly for me, entering google.com give me this link: http://➡.ws/g http://➡.ws/g Either Firefox doesn't recognise it as a valid address, or my DNS doesn't?

moe 18y ago

You could then differentiate your service I'm don't think there's any room for differentiation left in the tinyurl space. There are literally hundreds of such services and some of them work without an UI altogether (see the firefox addon for http://is.gd http://is.gd). Maybe, just maybe, you could set yourself apart by integrating tinypic, tinyurl and tinyvideo(?) or such into a neat package, and adding some whipcream features on top - but honestly, I'm very doubtful that there's any money in this.

thorax 18y ago
Well, people said that before we launched tinyarro.ws and I think that was different enough to catch people's attention. There are probably a few ideas out there left to try.

thorax 18y ago

I don't think that's a very warming idea. Feels kind of shady to me. Another step further and I'm expecting the service to remove other people's affiliate IDs and adding their own. On other fronts, we offer one approach on tinyurl "differentiation" via http://tinyarro.ws http://tinyarro.ws (super-small unicode URLs). For minimalists, we did http://ri.ms http://ri.ms. Not an overabundance of room nowadays to differentiate. But with TinyArrows, the concept is interesting enough to people that it has taken on a life of its own on Twitter, and we actually get a little traffic out of it to our other sites. But it's not enough traffic that I could recommend people spend much time on their own URL shrinkers (unless they're just bored and have a really compelling idea). I suggest using the services as a feeder for leads for your other products-- I personally see the affiliate thing as a bit shady. The only cool place to do it is in those awful spam emails that spammers overload the URL shrinkers with to hide their target site-- you could steal their revenue. But then you're making money off of spam...

mickt 18y ago
Tiny's not working properly for me, entering google.com give me this link: http://➡.ws/g http://➡.ws/g Either Firefox doesn't recognise it as a valid address, or my DNS doesn't?