15 ms·
Show HN: Snip.ly, the link shortener that drives conversion
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ShaneCurran 13y agoNice work! The design is really clean and I really like the concept. Keep it up!
- ASquare 13y agoI like this idea. Is it really free to use?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- BrainInAJar 13y agoThat's really spammy and gross. You are what's wrong with the internet today.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Sae5waip 13y agoIt can not be used with good intentions. There is never any advantage for the users who click on the links.
- laoba 13y agoSure it can be. What if I want the people I shared the link with to see my take on an article or something of the sort. Thinking in absolutes is never a good thing. Maybe -you- could never do anything good with it.
- Sae5waip 13y agoSeriously? a) You'd just write your take next to the link, instead of hiding it behind. Your example is far-fetched. b) This is obviously meant for ads. (And the examples on their landing page make that perfectly clear.) Quote: "You can essentially advertise on any website for free!"
- Noxchi 13y agoherp derp ads r bad!!1 You don't know what you're talking about. If I follow someone on twitter, I want to know what they are up to. If someone has an event or product, or something else they think is relevant to the article, then I want to know.
- laoba 13y agoA) I share most of the content I find on twitter, which is very limited. Again, you have some idea of I am going to be evil with it. B) That's cool that some of the uses are advertising, but I'm not going to. I'm not trying to sell some product.
- jack-r-abbit 13y ago> What if I want the people I shared the link with to see my take on an article or something of the sort I tend to do that at the time I share the link. Like: "Hey... check out this site. Could be cool... or evil ~ http://snip.ly/" http://snip.ly/"
- wingerlang 13y ago> Thinking in absolutes is never a good thing. Isn't this an absolute though?
- shotwell 13y agoI don't think you get it. http://snip.ly/h5P http://snip.ly/h5P
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- palakchokshi 13y agolol brilliant!!!
- Grae 13y agoBill Hicks said it best, so I'll leave it to him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
- deft 13y agoThis is a really great idea although slightly evil. Could be quite useful though. Nice job!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ramayac 13y agoHello!, I have a few suggestions: * This is linked to Twitter ID/Profile right? then why not add some ratio of following/followers to avoid spammy Snips? * Add a "flag" for reporting unapropiated Snips. I like the idea, it's devilishly clever. EDIT: format.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- alizhd 13y agoCool idea. I saw betakit using this the other day.
- laoba 13y agoI really like it! You know one thing that's not great though?? I cannot get back to just snip.ly once I'm logged in! It keeps kicking me to the dashboard when I want to be on the homepage!
- eli 13y agoNeat, but I would worry using it would annoy people. What's the ideal use case you imagine?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- BorisMelnik 13y agoI really like this as well. Sure it could be used for evil, but so can a zip tie if used for the wrong reasons. Already thinking of a ton of ways this can be used. Don't love that you have to sign-up for this but I suppose it is necessary.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- codecondo 13y agoWhat are these "tons of ways" you're talking about?
- ds9 13y agoDoes anyone know what court precedents there are for a site owner O. suing companies C. that present altered versions of O's site to third parties T, without consent from O? Arguably C. is interfering in the relationship of O. to T., wrongfully appropriating O's content for profit, and possibly defaming O by making O. appear (to T.) to be associated with C. If such actions are not legally ruled out, this service may invite them.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- aroch 13y agoAre you trying to ask if this could be tortuous interference with a business relationship? Or if Snip.ly would be liable for libel/defamation of their users by SiteA whose page was Snip.ly'd? The former, possibly depending on the ToS of the site and how creative your lawyers can be. The latter, probably not; see 17 U.S. Code § 512, aka Safe Harbor for online posts.
- dangrossman 13y agoThis is hardly the first site to frame another site. It's hardly the first link shortener to do so and add a message or ad in another frame or interstitial either. There's enough that "top 10 URL shorteners to make money" is an actual recurring blog post across the web.
- sandycheeks 13y agoI doubt it. About . com has been using a technique like this to put adsense ads on external links for years.
- shotwell 13y agoRelated to your point, the snip.ly website has the following user testimonial: You can essentially advertise on any website for free! --Lucille Danks ― Deloitte
- incision 13y agoI'm a bit surprised at the amount of positive response. This impresses me as rather obnoxious, probably effective, but obnoxious. Something between the pop-over ad and the ever-present network TV promotional crawl brought to the masses.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rkuykendall-com 13y agoI see your point, but I see it as providing context to the links. This is especially useful on Twitter where there is so little room for commentary. The message is not showing up for no reason. You clicked a link from someone you follow, because you wanted to usually BECAUSE of how that content relates to them. Sure, if you just change every link you send out to a link with an ad at the bottom that is bad. But I see no problem with adding context and commentary to a link someone is sharing on social media for that exact reason.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- opendais 13y agoI'm not. Marketing has a purpose like anything else. I'm more surprised and concerned by how few people commented on the fact it is relying on sites being vulnerable to clickjacking to function. Maybe I'm just overly paranoid?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Grae 13y agoI, for one, welcome our new branded linking overlords.
- opendais 13y agoX-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Clickjacking https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Clickjacking I'm not seeing how encouraging end users to engage in behavior that sites specifically turn off for security reasons as a 'good idea' regardless of the marketing value..?
- jasonlotito 13y agoPeople see Airbnb as a good idea, this shouldn't be a surprise.
- opendais 13y agoI'd be just as surprised if people posted AirBnb on a site for lawyers in NYC and the majority of lawyers thought it was a 'good idea'. I fully expect the end users of this product to be oblivious to technical minutiae like clickjacking. I was just expecting a stronger reaction to the technical detail this relies on a tech-heavy start up site like Hacker News.
- eliot_sykes 13y agoI'm not sure about this. Mmm. My gut feeling is I wouldn't feel too cool about using it, and I'd guess that if you gave news sites the chance to opt-in to being framed, not many would take Snip.ly up on it. But I might be missing the full picture, and perhaps I'm just not the target audience. Good luck to Snip.ly, but for developers who would want to stop this kind of thing from happening on their own sites, OWASP has a clickjacking defense cheat sheet: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Clickjacking_Defense_Cheat_Sheet https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Clickjacking_Defense_Cheat_S...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- eliot_sykes 13y agoAh ok, that makes sense. I'm still a tad uneasy about it. Thanks for the reply.
- frade33 13y agoI am pretty sure, this service is not going to thrive, because people will never click snip.ly urls once they know what it is, and contains user-ad which hinders user-exprience on the linked article. Is this too hard to figure?
- mixedbit 13y agoHow a user is supposed to know what site is behind the snip.ly URL? This is a phishing heaven.
- yatoomy 13y agoClearly can be good for advertisers, way to bypass having to buy an add inorder to advertise
- AznHisoka 13y agoThanks. I can now use this instead of proxies to scrape Google </evil unintended use>
- Elof 13y agoI'm all for being creative in marketing... but this kinda seems like link bait spam. Interested in seeing if/how companies use it, but hoping it doesn't turn into ads for weightloss and sex enhancing pills.
- electic 13y agoThis is not good. Consumers will eventually recognize that snip.ly links offer annoying experiences and they would not click on them over time. Thus, your conversion might actually decrease.
- bagels 13y agoSniply is going to start stuffing their own ads in that bar eventually. It's a shrewd move by sniply to collect advertising revenue from traffic of other sites.
- sixQuarks 13y agoWhenever HN "hivemind" thinks something is bad because they wouldn't personally use it, that's a good sign that it will be successful with consumers.