Comments on: The danger of shortened urls – Internet Archive to the rescue http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/the-danger-of-shortened-urls-internet-archive-to-the-rescue/ News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics Wed, 15 Feb 2012 08:05:45 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Michael Pastore http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/the-danger-of-shortened-urls-internet-archive-to-the-rescue/comment-page-1/#comment-1149088 Michael Pastore Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:02:05 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/?p=32073#comment-1149088 I agree wholeheartedly with Steve here: it's too risky to trust these services with URLs that I might want to see a few years from now. Here is an article (from July 2008) comparing "URL truncators" ... how many of them are still in business ? http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/short-url-truncators/ Also, with the full link, at one glance I can get more information. For example, if I see anywhere in the link: teleread.com then I know I will be clicking to a source that is interesting, reliable, authoritative and trustworthy. If I see only http://preview.tinyurl.com/yaoymqo then I don't know where I'm heading. Clicking on that mysterious link might take me to an unsavory web site, where I would have a lot of 'splainin' to do. All that said: if you must use a shortened URL, then the 301works.org project looks like a very good idea. Michael Pastore 50 Benefits of Ebooks I agree wholeheartedly with Steve here: it’s too risky to trust these services with URLs that I might want to see a few years from now.

Here is an article (from July 2008) comparing “URL truncators” … how many of them are still in business ?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/short-url-truncators/

Also, with the full link, at one glance I can get more information. For example, if I see anywhere in the link:

teleread.com

then I know I will be clicking to a source that is interesting, reliable, authoritative and trustworthy.

If I see only

http://preview.tinyurl.com/yaoymqo

then I don’t know where I’m heading. Clicking on that mysterious link might take me to an unsavory web site, where I would have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.

All that said: if you must use a shortened URL, then the 301works.org project looks like a very good idea.

Michael Pastore
50 Benefits of Ebooks

]]> By: Steve Jordan http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/the-danger-of-shortened-urls-internet-archive-to-the-rescue/comment-page-1/#comment-1149061 Steve Jordan Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:28:03 +0000 http://www.teleread.org/?p=32073#comment-1149061 You'd think the e-book community (and a few others), having had the experience of buying from a web vendor and losing your purchase when the site made a change or went out of business, would be more leery of services like this. IMO, better off to just buy a <i>real</i> URL, even if it isn't ideal in name, than to risk losing a horde of tiny URLs down the line. You’d think the e-book community (and a few others), having had the experience of buying from a web vendor and losing your purchase when the site made a change or went out of business, would be more leery of services like this. IMO, better off to just buy a real URL, even if it isn’t ideal in name, than to risk losing a horde of tiny URLs down the line.

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