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Google Unveils goo.gl URL Shortening Service
eldavojohn writes "The Sultan of Search is unveiling a new service (currently only available for Google Toolbar and Feedburner) that will tackle a very old problem usually solved by bit.ly or tinyurl — URL shortening. Now, we've heard cries for sanity to prevent potential issues (like what if tr.im had shut down and broken millions of links?) but with one of the goliaths of the industry jumping in the ring it looks like URL shortening is here to stay. And a quick note for people who enjoy privacy, goo.gl explicitly states: 'Please note that Google may choose to publicly display aggregate and non-personally identifiable statistics about particular shortened links, such as the number of end user clicks.' You didn't think Google was going to sit back and let bit.ly harvest juicy data on 2.1 billion links that were clicked in November without trying to corner some of that action to make their ad suggestions more accurate, did you?" Google's shortening service is called Goo.gl.
Aside from twitter and SMS which both have self-imposed limits, what's the point of these things?!
See? I can also miss one tiny, important detail!
Oh crap, I hope I don't start writing for Slashdot...
i 4 1 wl b avoiding ths. XStng sRvcs wRk fine & this is 1 mr way goo.gl headed 2wrds Nfo omnisns
There! Shortened that for you!
I, for one, will not be satisfied until my URLs are compressed as a super positions of themselves and stored in qubits.
Perhaps Google can use one of their quantum computers to appease me.
Hang on. He only proved that he can't read, we need proof that he can't write either before Slashdot hires him..
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Long links in twitter messages significantly reduce the amount of available characters.
Google is really going to look foolish when my new, extensible length twitter service comes out. This new service will allow arbitrary length messages and thus totally eliminate the need to link shortening.
Although I haven't yet named my new service, I am leaning towards calling it "eMail", but I need to check if that name has already been taken.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Well you could always start a Nigerian company called bi.ng ?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So, that's how Google Gibraltar looks like... It's funny how the official meaning of TLD is always totally ignored. Case in point: as many others, White House uses bit.ly for its URL shortening on White House Tweeter posts... never mind that .ly TLD is assigned to Libya.
Long URLs also (should) let us know what's behind a link before we actually click on it.
www.apple.com/ipod/
www.microsoft.com/office/
www.nintendo.com/wii/
and so on...
If you have garbage such as "&id=54353" in your non-search URLs, you're doing it wrong.
Quite how popping up a page stating the service was busy is any easier than just issuing a redirect to the required site I don't really know
Issuing a redirect to the right place requires access to the database, issueing an error message does not.
P.S. if you are running a website please help reduce the need for url shorteners by using sensible urls.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
"Coozy Pumpkins" sounds a hell of a lot worse to me... If that's a euphemism for anything I don't want to know.