URL Shorteners – bad news?
With the popularity of Twitter, comes the demand for URL shorteners. Long URLs simply don’t fit into Twitter, so a number of free URL shorteners appeared. However there has been concern raised by some about the risks associated with using a free service to link to your valuable online content.
Well, the inevitable has happened… TR.IM is closing down, meaning that unless someone else buys their database, then millions of links will simply stop working after Jan 1st 2010. they claim that they couldn’t monetise the service and they couldn’t compete against Bit.ly.
It is expected that someone will step in and buy the service to “rescue” the links, which will save the day – as long as they don’t re-direct all links to porn or malware sites!
This situation raises the debate about putting your (shortURL) eggs into someone else’s basket. Maybe we should all build shortURL functionality into our website pages, at least then we are in control.
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