StumbleUpon is preparing to launch a shortURL service (a web service that provides short aliases for redirection of long URLs, like TinyURL or Bit.ly) in the next couple of weeks called su.pr.
Founder Garrett Camp announced the new service on Twitter without any description of what it might be on March 3. In an email exchange he says it will be a shortURL service to share StumbleUpon links on sites like Twitter and Facebook and that it will be launched in a week or two. The site currently redirects to StumbleUpon.
Digg is planning its own similar service, which we covered late last month.
Digg’s service will show additional information, like total traffic to the link, in a Digg “toolbar” wrapper, and users can easily create links by simply adding digg.com/ before any URL (the short URL will then be created and shown. I don’t have any information on exactly what StumbleUpon is planning, but it’s a safe guess it’ll have similar features, and it may actually launch before Digg.
The benefit to StumbleUpon and Digg to these services is traffic when people click on the short URLs. People add a lot on links on Twitter posts but space constraints (140 characters per post) require short URLs.
Thanks Paul for the tip.
Hi Michael;
It would be interesting if these big players do more than just launch new URL reduction sites and actually provide some value by performing analytics for folks.
I think that is the next step for many of these sites.
Mike
That’s why I use twtr.us. They give you free stats on how many times people have viewed your shortened URL, as well as how many times it’s been retweeted (if you’re on Twitter, of course). Geez, I’m starting to sound like a commercial, so I’ll leave it at that!
Bit.ly FTW!
I’ve always wanted a service that could combine analytics with bookmarking and the shortest name possible. Maybe Yahoo’s Delicious will buy http://tr.im and make my life easier.
I don’t see a value in URL shortening services and a new one comes out on killerstartups every week.
Try the best homepage
@Michael, that’s a good idea; I don’t think it would be that hard for them to do.
these appear to be another form of “undercover” spam links. there appears no branding here with the crumby domains they have chosen. i find these links suspicious and at face value untrustworthy. where the hell is .pr? the peruvian resevoir?
MicroLocator.com – belittle yourself
.pr is Puerto Rico
(No offense, but isn’t the ultimate Locator supposed to be able to, well… locate things?)
The only problem with URL reductions is you have no idea where you are being redirected, correct?
Exactly! That’s why I never click them.
Some sort of NSFW filter or disclaimer would be a nice feature…
yeah i hate that crap
Thats why I use http://up4.net as my short URL service. It’s not quite as short as 4 letters, but alteast people trust a .net
Short URL should be descriptive.
Coming soon…
http://theresu.me
There are plenty of open source packages available to build your own solution.
Just a matter of time before they get to stuff like http://ba.be and http://cu.be
Not sure about all the others, but you can go to tinyurl.com and turn on a preference to show you where you’re going before actually taking you there.
http://tinyurl.com/preview.php
There’s no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There’s no knowing where we’re rowing
Or which way the river’s flowing
@Nono cool didn’t know that, I hate not knowing where I am going….
You can also modify the TinyURL to preview.tinyurl.com/XXXXX and have the full URL displayed without having to actually visit it.
Thanks Scott, I like this way very useful. I been blind and now I a can see.
Well, this has been a twitter tip for a while that I’m putting in my book. Basically, I always preface what the link is. Like this Tweet.
http://twitter....atus/1318429919
I generally wrap a [xxxx] before the link in my tweet. Commonly used tags are [FLICKR], [LINK], [EBAY], [BLOG], [YOUTUBE].
Doing that has increased the amount of clicks I receive because people feel more comfortable clicking the link. Of course, I’ve never lied about what the link is so people trust me.
Your “solution” kills the entire idea of shortURL’s…
There are already a ton of URL shortening services. Why do we really need more?
ahhh…. why re-invent wats already there?
why would anyone choose them over tinyurl ?
Because TinyURL isn’t very “tiny”
There are more competitors that are drastically shorter and every character counts when microblogging is limited to 140 or 160 characters.
Finally, TinyURL doesn’t offer stats. Other services like Bit.ly show you who clicked the link in real time too.
Handy idea, but why another service? Is there some value add here that tiny doesn’t already provide? Other features would be a lot better.
I’ve translated this post into Chinese
When it comes to sharing shortened URLs all prefer popular Tinyurl which is more widely used now a days on twitter.
StumbleUpon is a mozilla toolbar which acts as an intelligent browsing tool for discovering and sharing great web sites with other people
Could be used for the wrong reasons… too many of them exist right now.
TechFilipino
german based event-startup popula.de has it’s own BRANDED shortURL popu.la – now that’s cool!
Nice Post! Check out my similar site at http://macmaniapodcast.com
Oh! I didn’t know that eBay acquired SU.
Coming from someone who has owned one of the largest short url sites, as well as currently operate a alexa top 15k one-
They make almost NOTHING in revenue.
The average is about $1000 USD for every 100k visitors. Not exactly phenomenal.
That’s because you joined a silly market that everyone and their mother is involved with.
One of the smartest things any social network should do, twitter should start one as well, why point links to someone else’s property when you can do your own and control it? Who on twitter would complain if they switched to say tw.tr and they could view stats, etc?
thats funny, i just bought the domain supurlman.com last week
supurlman. get it? get it?
http://supurlman.com/
UrLoco.com
UrLoca.com
For Sale.. Need Fuel
This is useful, but it’s not a “service”. It’s just a feature that many products should implement.
Michael,
can you check the spam filter for my previous comment please?
If it has an API Ill integrate it here:
http://tinybud.....net/twiz/iurl/
Nice post! Check out my site too at http://macmaniapodcast.com.
The comments seem directed at shortened URLs aspect but no mention of the possibility of bookmarking your tweets to Twitter which both Digg and StumbleUpon could do with this. I wonder if they will. Now only http://krumlr.com both bookmarks and tweets your URLs (as far as I know).
You should try the guys are http://101.gs – they call themselves Short&Tweet. They also have a simple API/Web Service for you to create short URLs. I believe them do collect stats, but this might is something that will come later.
NB
Anyone wants to build the *shortest* short URL service?
I own C.GG domain – can’t get shorter than that. Easy to spell, easy to type.
Would be interested in business opportunities from interested parties.
None of the idiots commenting on this post has mentioned the obvious issue of what happens when those fly-by-night URL shrinkers go out of business: your URL is gone forever. Possibly (likely) bought by some shady company that redirects the entire base to affiliate (read: porn) sites. So now the web is full of thousands or millions of tiny URLs that no longer work when there’s really no need to shrink URLs to begin with. Don’t you idiots realize the 140-character constraint on Twitter is not really a technical limitation but really a marketing gimmick?
The U in URL stands for something. Rewriting/redirecting URLs in non-permanent, non-universal ways is retarded.
Nice post.
Check my profile at:
http://www.link...m/jmathews.aspx
Oh man, WHEN? Waiting …
Supr I’m trying and I must say it is fantastic
Try this one.. http://jals.in