A new URL shortening service LinksPreadeR (spelled like that because the URL is l.pr) has just launched in beta with an interesting twist on the shortening craze. It allows you to tack comments onto the end of the short URL, to send messages via the hyperlink. That’s kind of cool, but it also obviously makes the short URL a lot longer.
The idea is that with the messages in the URL, you won’t need to have a separate comment in your tweet or Facebook message. The problem with that is that people the people who like to retweet comments with comments of their own will have much less space to do so.
Here’s an example of what the shortened URL with a message will look like: http://l.pr/a43v/hey,_it’s_mah_blog and here’s a slightly more ridiculous one: http://l.pr/a43w/hey,_look_it’s_my_Twitter_profile._go_take_a_look._if_you_dare.
Yeah, not sure how useful that is.
But, you can use it as a regular shortening service too. Below each message-encoded URL is an actual short URL you can use too. For example, the latter one above can also be: http://l.pr/a43w. Yes, much shorter, and nice thanks to the three letter domain.
Like most other URL shortening services. LinksPreadR also has a bookmarklet for easier use.
Update: And I just realized something, for URLs with really long messages, Twitter will re-shorten it, using bit.ly. Yeah, that totally defeats the point. For shorter messages it still works though.
do you remember back in the good old days of 2006-07 when every day you’d see an amazing new web 2.0 webapp that would inspire you
things must have gone quiet in the startup world for dumb_url_shortening_sites_to_get_a_feature.
progress eh
Have you profiled the Million dollar homepage as yet? pls. do it fast..
PR needs this… but wait till people use it for spam.
oh thats cool. especially since anyone who has made a link from there are currently screwd, the website is down!
this madness has to end!
No, cus THIS! IS! SPARTAAAA!!!!
just make the comment a #hashtag
even when we add a custom word its added to their url making it longer Ex : http://l.pr/a4ey/amitblog it would have been better if it worked like tinyurl!
This whole post is a fail.
I HATE the part where you add a message to your URL. It’s stupid. It defeats the point. And, common messages will be tken and then you can’t even use it.
On the other hand, it’s a good URL for shortning. Two charecteres less than bit.ly and it’s newer so it only has 3 charecteres
Oops. I didn’t realize your message gets added along with your URL ID thing.
I still don’t like the concept. But, some people may.
You can do that with any shortener. http://is.gd/1s...seless_things_I‘ve_seen
or with a querystring:
http://bit.ly/S...d_a_querystring
it seems to me like the point of this isn’t to tack some funny/informative name onto the URL and then include it in a tweet — it’s to use the URL as the place to put your tweet.
i.e., instead of “hey guys, check out this funny picture! http://l.pr/a43...is_my_funny_pic“, you would include your message in the link itself, like this: “http://l.pr/a43v/hey,_check_out_this_funny_picture”
if i’m wrong, then i agree with you, it’s pretty stupid. if i’m right, though, i think it could be pretty cool.
wow, this is the most stupid thing ever.
People on our site use tinyURLs with no character limitation to speak of. This audience, at least, will love l.pr since it eliminates the problem other tinyURL services have where custom URLs that enable editorialization are already disappearing
Folks like this seem to like the mystery of a shortened URL, and use the url customizers when possible, but sacrifice clickthroughs when the urlComment they hope to make is already claimed.
The fact that l.pr is only 3 letters and the links work with or without the comment means that they’ll always be available in pretty-damn-tiny form.
Regardless, I don’t use anything that isn’t added to Tweetdeck, and other people have tinyURL analytics needs that define which services they use. These are hurdles for Linkspreader (those caps are ridiculous looking).
I personally am not too fond of url shortening and I use Log url mobile expander as a firefox addon. Too bad it doesnt work with tweet deck
Well, if the short url gets too long, I’d just shorten it again… That’s a funny concept !
which is exactly what twitter does automatically
http://bit.ly/pA02A
This is a bit.ly’d version of a l.pr url (I_like_reading techcrunch), which is itself a shortened version of a su.pr url, or a tinyurl.
Maybe if we do enough of these, the Internet will implode.
BTW techcrunch shortened URLs don’t work! I’m getting connection time-out every time I use your tcrn.ch links
This is actually a really useful tool, not for shortening URLs, but for marketing people. One of the very few actually effective SEO techniques is to put keywords in the URL, and this allows users to do that nicely.
I’m launching a URL shortening service called, “.”. You can put any length of a URL into . and it simply comes out as . . Should be able to get some funding for this too.
http://f.oo/a3v.../sd8f?s=http://...
and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on…
Seems quite pointless.
it’s not as stupid as tweetfit.info ?
it totally defeats the purpose or url shortners
yes, it is beta, check this
http://l.pr/about
I used to be a stupid and lazy liberal. I would spend most of my time each day looking to condemn people for living life the right way. But one day something happened. I was no longer cynical nor judgmental about other people who did not share my beliefs no matter how misguided my beliefs. Do you know what happened to me? I graduated from college and got a good job and I am no longer a hateful and lazy bum. What makes this all the more enjoyable is that the rich and hardworking conservatives paid for my public college education. Thank you conservatives. If you guys did not pay for my colelge there is no way I would have gone to college since most rich liberals do not give money for public education. They would rather spend it on needless political fundraisers and parties.
You forgot cocksucking. “stupid and lazy cocksucking liberal” I believe is what you were.
Feature is excellent….But It needs something more innovative like tracking URL as clicks getting to that URL, pageviews and more….which user have in mind.
This will help in increasing visibility of l.pr
Love it, it’s fun and silly at the same time! Just like my own url tool http://hapylink.com which makes urls happier to spread joy to those who view it.
Whats the point of a url shortening serivce that allows you to make it a long url… I don’t think I would use it very often. But nice initiative anyways!
There is a new URL shortening website targeted at twitter, called Tweep.in (www.tweep.in)
I’m stunned that any developer would have any interest in creating yet another URL shortener for any reason. I mean it’s a good “Hello World” project for the web, but to actually launch these things as a product is just pathetic.
you can add notes as post-it and still keep the short URL: http://bit.ly/gXTY2
it is so called annotated links
If you’re too lazy to write the comment yourself just let it be generated from the page’s title using http://longr.us/:
http://books.sl...8/1423251.shtml
=>
http://longr.us...gence-in-action
MG: Bit.Ly has alway had the ability for you to customise your url e.g http://bit.ly/onepage meaning you can add any pessage at the end of your link. So it is not really new.
There is a thread related to long links as messages on twitter dev group that I was reading and how twitter destroys them with bit.ly. This is interesting idea though.
The link got erased. Here it is.
http://groups.g...92343c727e6ec45
Here is the link again:
http://bit.ly/rQCzw
Not sure why it was removed.
Their website mentions an SEO product that encodes the pesky free text in your website’s URLs to binary code (so Google can read it better). They also have a Beta that converts images on your website to ASCII drawings to optimize the compression. The web will never be the same.
I don’t think I want to have comments as part of the URL that I’m sharing.