4 ms·

Link shorteners shorten the URL itself, they have little to do with the HTML tag. hxxp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=549620 vs hxxp://bitly.com/cjVY Given

by gry 18y ago

Link shorteners shorten the URL itself, they have little to do with the HTML tag. hxxp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=549620 vs hxxp://bitly.com/cjVY Given the 140 character limit, a 50% savings is monstrous. Having Twitter auto-link on display is no big deal, it's free -- as news.yc does. TinyURL was great in the day, it was a temporary stopgap until email clients quit breaking word-wrapped links. Since then and up until Twitter, I'd argue use cases for shortened links were near zero. If Twitter rolled their own, they could smooth out usability issues with shortening (i.e. display the full link or host when viewing via the web, to crawlers, etc.) -- edit: Changed http to hxxp to help clarify argument. News.yc auto-links http:// http://, so the benefit wasn't as clear.

chaosmachine 18y ago
What I meant was that URLs would be replaced with the word "link". <a href="hxxp://somelongurl.com/1234">link</a> Like that, except actually a link. Short anchor text eliminates the need for short URLs.
- gry 18y ago
  Right. What I'm saying is the HTML is cruft. <a href="hxxp://somereallylongurl.com/1234">link</a> vs hxxp://somereallylongurl.com/1234 vs hxxp://shortner.com/1234 The client will automatically href it. You're not saving anything...actually creating more characters. The URL benefits from shortening, not the link title.
  - chaosmachine 18y ago
    Either way, it doesn't matter what the URL is when the user only sees "link". This is why tiny URLs are a solution to a problem the web doesn't have. Tiny anchor text is all that's needed.
    - gry 18y ago
      This is why tiny URLs are a solution to a problem the web doesn't have. Agreed, it solves little to nothing with the web. It is, however, helpful to Twitter and the problem/limitation SMS has. To my mention earlier, URL shorteners are growing with Twitter's popularity, which is why all the fuss is here, methinks.

by gry 18y ago

chaosmachine 18y ago

What I meant was that URLs would be replaced with the word "link". <a href="hxxp://somelongurl.com/1234">link</a> Like that, except actually a link. Short anchor text eliminates the need for short URLs.

gry 18y ago
Right. What I'm saying is the HTML is cruft. <a href="hxxp://somereallylongurl.com/1234">link</a> vs hxxp://somereallylongurl.com/1234 vs hxxp://shortner.com/1234 The client will automatically href it. You're not saving anything...actually creating more characters. The URL benefits from shortening, not the link title.
- chaosmachine 18y ago
  Either way, it doesn't matter what the URL is when the user only sees "link". This is why tiny URLs are a solution to a problem the web doesn't have. Tiny anchor text is all that's needed.
  - gry 18y ago
    This is why tiny URLs are a solution to a problem the web doesn't have. Agreed, it solves little to nothing with the web. It is, however, helpful to Twitter and the problem/limitation SMS has. To my mention earlier, URL shorteners are growing with Twitter's popularity, which is why all the fuss is here, methinks.