Earlier today I covered two new URL shortening services, UnHub and LNK.by, the latest additions to the plethora of basic web applications that many people are growing accustomed to for sharing links on micro-sharing services and social networking sites.
And just when I thought I’d had it with that type of service for a while, we caught wind of one that made me raise my eyebrows. Enter NytUrl, the ‘trusted’ URL shortener for NYtimes.com articles. Update: The site and all the redirects were taken down “due to abuse.”
According to the website, the service shortens URLs for NYTimes.com articles, although a quick test shows that it’s definitely not restricted to other websites (see http://nyturl.com/34 and http://nyturl.com/35), even if it occasionally says the URL is not valid for any other site. This of course defeats the entire purpose of the service, which is to reassure people clicking the links that they’ll wind up on the NYTimes.com website. My guess is that the ability to add links to other websites will be disabled soon enough.
NytUrl also comes with a handy bookmarklet and a basic API, but the website claims this is just the beginning and that there are lots of new features coming soon.
Here’s the strange part: this service is not operated or even endorsed by the New York Times. In fact, the official Twitter account @NYTimes uses bit.ly for links to articles, even if some NYT related accounts are apparently already using NytUrl.com, as evidenced by this Twitter search query (and these example tweets).
So what gives? A WHOIS search for the owner of the nyturl.com domain name doesn’t reveal a thing since his or her identity has been protected upon registration, but according to our source this is effectively the work of two NYTimes employees, namely one of the group’s Senior Software Architects, Jacob Harris and in-house developer Michael Donohoe.
Which checks out, because Harris is a self-proclaimed Twitter fan and NYTimes aficionado, and according to the bio posted on the SXSW website (where he was a panelist for one of the sessions) he’s also the one who set up the Twitter feeds for a variety of NYTimes related accounts. Donohoe even lists the NytUrl service on his website, so no doubt he’s involved.
Update: Donohoe got back to a request for more information but declines to share more details.
And in case you’re wondering why Harris isn’t using nyt.com (which is owned by the NY Times and forwarded to the main website) for the service, which would knock another 3 characters off the shortened URLs: our source says this was likely a grassroots initiative which hasn’t been approved by any of the decision makers at the NY Times, and that it’s not clear if it’s even going to be in the future.
It does raise interesting questions: is it a good idea for media companies to obtain control over the short URLs they broadcast across the net and link back to their content? Will netizens lend more credibility to media-owned URL shorteners? Or should they just be using what is out there instead of adding yet another one to the fray?
(Note that we use tcrn.ch ourselves for our Twitter account, and that you can see the shortened URL for any of our posts right next to the comment box, in this case http://tcrn.ch/Lk)
Your thoughts on this?
From NytUrl.com:
“First, let me make clear that this site is NOT endorsed, operated or owned by The New York Times. Rather it is run by a web and NYT enthusiast.”
Woops, wrong key prematurely. Just seems a little misleading to present this site as having anything to do with NYT.
Not misleading. NYT is already beginning to use it unofficially, and it was created by a NYT developer. Also, we say “kinda”
that explains why they aren’t just using the url nyt.com as the base. if i were on the web staff, using the nyt domain would be a no-brainer.
What do you call a newspaper site or news site that has a Twitter widget? Does anyone know of a online paper with a Twitter widget on their home page? I do
this whole shortening thing is getting scary. I think twitter should come up with a way to display (and allow to post) *actual* urls on the web instead of shortened versions [do display shortened version on SMS only]
short urls create an unnecessary layer that can be exploited by malicious users
if you’re a Firefox user, consider adding https://addons....efox/addon/9591 as an extension.
Consider the bookmarklet at Unshortn (link in my name) as a good way to verify shortlinks. You can drag it to the addressbar and click it to check all the links on the page. We’ll be working on an extension or grease monkey plugin too if there is demand.
i am not really upset if new york times gets into this url shortening game because unlike the others you know where it will lead on the other end. so you know for sure you’ll end up on a trusted site. i hate the rest because you are clicking a link blind.
This is kinda nice. At least we get to know what we are clicking.
It could very well be that within a year every major blog will have its own short url service.
Wonder how Bit.ly, Tinyurl and the other 101+ similar short url providers are feeling about this.
Wouldn’t that sort of defeat the purpose of a short URL service, though? A site like Smashing Magazine would still have pretty long URLs: smashingmagazine.com/34 is still fairly long. I still think there will be a place for independent URL shortening services (how else will people get rick rolled?), even if the need becomes small.
Robin:
I usually see interesting posts from you – but today these URL shorteners caught me a bit off guard (maybe they’re interesting to others – but to me its mostly noise other than bit.ly’s latest round of funding). Surely there are some exciting new startups worth covering or news from existing startups!
well said. many of us have submitted startups to techcrunch. we’d like some coverage or criticism
The best solution would be…
1) you paste the complete, original url
2) twitter detects the url
3) turn it into a link 10 char max (the domain name) you will see a link youtube, techcrunch, digg, nytimes etc.
http:// is 7 characters, so 10 characters is great, also few domain names are bigger than that.
i think this will be perfect
nice to see the term “url” take front and center stage again.
hopefully they will start calling them what they really are……” tiny locators .”
CapitalDomain.com – sound investments
no they are ‘tiny obscurers’ and they are dangerous
I kind of like Robin’s post on URL shorteners. It is refreshing to see what people are creating and what the hype is. If there are 10 new companies creating url shorteners that is a hype or trend and needs to be reported so we can be informed and probably create our own URL shorteners in 2 hours
I never thought there were this many URL shorteners.
I think they should just use the nyt.com url for it and do it officially like the article seems to suggest. Having an automated and official url shortner is just better for business. Keeps others from messing with your search engine results. Plus you don’t have to worry about the url shortening website going under someday.
These link are way too cryptic. I prefer http://www.hapylink.com, which creates links full of sparkly joy like this one http://hapylink...pinkbestunicorn. Link size doesn’t matter – link happiness does.
Scary? Shorted URLs *scare* you? There has to be a courage wolf in that somewhere.
Big f’ing deal.
Beatch, Pleeze.
He (or she) who owns the data rules the world! Part of the benefit of generating your own shortened URLs using something like bit.ly or tr.im is that I can see who’s clicking and spreading my links.
I totally see the value in ‘owning’ the short URLS for your own domain (especially for a media company like Techcrunch, or the NYT). However, I don’t want to have to create a whole menu bar in my FF just for all the bookmarklets for these sites.
Well, that didn’t take long. Taken down “due to misuse”
Check the 57th minute of the video below. According to Alex Payne of Twitter, “what we do with Urls is gonna change”.. “I wish I could say more”.
http://cobb.sta...7-cs547-300.wmv
“Taken down for now due to abuse.”
LOL. That didn’t last long.
Ha! Hopefully it’s down for good. This is getting way out of control.
With all these url shorteners, SnapShots actually provides a pretty good counter since I can see the site before I click.
This is an absolutely inane cottage industry that is about as interesting as the fart app industry. Twitter should introduce some kind of link-attaching functionality like Facebook, where attached links are seen as a simple title, description and thumbnail. With the increasing sophistication of mobile phones, I can’t imagine an industry that relies on the 140-character limit being around in even 2 or 3 years.
These links make no sense. Seems to me absolute geek stuff or worse affiliate links. The long URLs make sense as they tell what is the title of the post is. so they are more descriptive.
When I went to the domain, it said it was taken down due to abuse
Use anchor text. Embed the link into your actual words. How easy is that? Select the words you want to embed the text to, small popup dialogue asks you for the URL – BAM! Your link is embeded. People can see where it goes to (by rolling over it) and you get to actually DESCRIBE the link too (using anchor text). If you’re worried about SEO tricksters, use nofollow.
Actually to reply to myself, a small (bad) joke:-
Why isn’t Web 2.0 profitable? Because it isn’t Web 101.
Why trust a 3rd party with your links? Use your own link shorter and maintain full control of your content.
this kind of service is easy to build.
I am going to make one of these just for @the_real_shaq. That way you know all the links you are clicking are fully endorsed by Shaq.
Dumb.
nytimes.com/34 wasn’t short enough?
3 stories on the main page are URL shortener related.
Is it possible (by defintion) for Techcrunch to spam their own site? Seriously guys, this is not news. It’s pretty silly to give these services this much coverage
Well I’ll try to test it .. hmmm….
Actually it does make sense to use your own Short URL’s and for everyone using Wordpress why not try it with your own domain:
http://aytemir....-try-wordpress/
I don’t really understand this URL shortening thing, except that Twitter requires your typing everything in 140 characters.
5/10 years ago, sites like yahoo.com were already considered short enough.
If techcrunch.com (or newyorktimes.com) is really that long to remember (or to text in one message) why bother keeping the original domain? This URL would have been made http://tcrn.ch/...ng-arena-kinda/ and an automatic shortening plug-in for Wordpress could do the job, instead of developing one shortening service for one web site.
Ronald, the point of a URL shortening service is to have a short domain and URL, but that’s beside the point. The real reason behind URL shortening is to have an easy to remember or pass along URL. Instead of having – http://www.tech...comment-2708504 – which you will never remember, or care to do so, you have http://tcrn.ch/Lk. Much easier to remember or tell someone about.
The whole URL shortening idea has split into two evolving concepts – money making thus the variety of sites offering this service; and content ownership. The later ensures, by owning the URL shortening service, that traffic from the short URL will never stop. If any of the other URL shortening services go down or close down what happens to traffic coming from all the places where those URL have been used/posted? It stops, which results in decline in SEO, page hits, ad impressions and clicks …. It also guarantees that whatever the URL the short URL is pointing to will not be changed by someone, thus stealing the traffic.
Regardless, we still claim the shortest short url service on the Net today – r.im. Plugging aside, it’s pretty obvious that short URL services will have to evolve. Just shortening URLs is a no brainer. The question is what other value add can you bring to the mix. Some folks are doing analytics etc. which seems to me to be rather silly given that those clicks are already being measured elsewhere. The idea that you could create a type of very simple Digg out of this has possibilities. If all else fails, we’ve got Techcrunch’s Deadpool to look forward to. Meet you by the pool!
I guess in some cases, shorter IS better! LOL
RT
http://www.privacy.pro.tc
I hope they are able to fix their issues. I’ve been really getting into the NYT lately.
I too have always liked the New York Times and I dont personally think that their url will be a detterent in the service that they provide.
How about the programmers that write the code make it where the urls are not cryptic and overly long. It’s bad design that’s the problem.
I don’t understand why TC covers this sort of things…
I think you should also cover the start up of another shortening service. One owned by your employer – http://tcrn.ch, and it can be found at the end of each article page.
Be honest, you didn’t read the entire article, did you?
Oh, I read it. I just don’t think that one sentence coverage is sufficient compared to the amount of time and wording used to cover other similar services.
By the way, my comment was a sarcastic response to your first sentence, first portion, second paragraph statement!
Threely (http://3.ly) is the best url shortener out there… it shortens links to the smallest possible URL and has more features coming soon… I use it all the time for Twitter and emailing links.