Twi.bz: the transparent URL shortener

http://twi.bz/

by jgrahamc • 17 years ago

50 72 17 years ago

twi.bz

pclark7• 17 years ago

I'd probably advertise yourself as: Twi.bz: the URL shortener that's transparent.

jgrahamc8• 17 years ago

Done. Thanks for the feedback.

Xichekolas5• 17 years ago

Can you add an way to call as an api? Something like:

http://twi.bz/api?url=http://tinyurl.com that returns nothing but the shortened url (or the original if it was shorter)? (Much like tinyurl does here: http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=http://twi.bz)

Then I could use it with TwitterFox!

Small thing, but on the index page:

"Half that length of a Twitter message"

Think you mean 'the' instead of 'that'

Also, when I shorten a URL, it'd be handy to have the new url as a link in addition to a text box, because then I can right click on it and 'Copy Link Location', which is slightly less effort than highlighting and copying. (I know, but I'm uber lazy.)

Nice idea!

boredguy8• 17 years ago

"Twi.bz: the transparent URL shrinker" (or shortener, if you're tied to that name) or

"Twi.bz: transparent and short URLs"

Xichekolas5• 17 years ago

Or:

"Twi.bz: Short, Transparent URLs"

mbreese• 17 years ago

You might end up having some trademark issues. For example, I could see Amazon not being too happy with the example link http://amazon.twi.bz/a.

The other thing that I see is that for a URL shortener, the above is 22 characters. What about if you were linking to a page here. For example, a link to this page is http://ycombinator.twi.bz/b. That's 27 characters.

If you are going to use a URL shortener (not that I'm suggesting that it is a good idea), why use one that is so verbose (relatively speaking)?

So, I'm not sure that there is a sweet spot here. You have people on one side that will never _ever_ use a URL shortener. On the other side, you have people that want the smallest link possible. There isn't much space in the middle (IMHO).

jgrahamc8• 17 years ago

The flip side for Amazon is that since it's clear that link is going to Amazon you are more likely to click on it which means more business for Amazon.

arghnoname• 17 years ago

Not every usage for url shorteners is for twitter. I personally don't use twitter, but when I send long links to my mother via e-mail, she has trouble unless I use a url shrinking service. I'd much prefer one that shows the domain outside of extremely space constricted environments.

jonknee• 17 years ago

If your mom has trouble opening large links, she's probably not the type to be comforted by a subdomain. If the link is from her son she's going to click it.

teej• 17 years ago

I appreciate the hackery and speed with which you implemented this idea born out of HN. That being said, I really, really don't care about another URL shortener.

ssn2• 17 years ago

Do you consider releasing the URL mapping database? That would make sense in the context of transparency.

jgrahamc8• 17 years ago

You mean the mapping between twi.bz URLs and the real URLs? Yes, I absolutely plan to release the data. I'm just working on what the best way is, and I wanted to get some feedback.

It's worth knowing that I hacked this together in a two hour session very, very late last night. This is its public debut.

I want to be able to release the mapping and also the trending information.

What format would people prefer?

ssn2• 17 years ago

Great to hear that you also plan to release the trending information. For the URL->twi.bz mapping I would opt for a simple text file with a mapping per line.

soult2• 17 years ago

Please release a separate file without trend information, as not everyone will need it. For the data format: How about a simple CSV file with 3 fields: "domain-part,path,url". This would translate to such entries:

amazon,a, http://www.amazon.com/Geek-Atlas-Places-Science-Technology/d...

If you compress the file (or start a new file every week/month) this shouldn't be much of a burden for your server.

pclark7• 17 years ago

Always wondered - what value is this database? short of editing the /etc/hosts or browser plugin to redirect from $nowDeadURL/dh36 to $newURL/dh36.

Do people have urls so valuable locked in a tiny url service that'll be lost forever if the service dies? serious question.

decode2• 17 years ago

A similar service is DecentURL. It generally has slightly longer URLs, but lets you put your own descriptive string in the link, in addition to adding the target's domain as the link's subdomain.

http://decenturl.com/

pclark7• 17 years ago

thats a remarkable service. They take this ugly url: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ [38 characters] and turn it into this pretty url: http://youtube.decenturl.com/medieval-help-desk [47 characters]

their "pretty" url is much longer than the original one. What the hell!?

decode2• 17 years ago

Yep, adding information often means adding space.

On the other hand, you can shorten http://www.amazon.com/Depends-What-Youre-At/dp/B001DQF7VW/re... [109 characters] to http://amazon.decenturl.com/depends [37 characters], which adds information and also saves space.

TweedHeads• 17 years ago

Hmm, now I wonder why YouTube doesn't offer 'prettyfied' urls so we don't have to click links like:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=never-gonna-give-you-up

benhoyt2• 17 years ago

Thanks for the mention. :-)

Yes, the first thing I thought about twi.bz was, "I thought I already solved this with DecentURL" ... but I didn't quite. Looks like twi.bz is still about shortening URLs, whereas DecentURL is about making URLs decent.

Occassionally DecentURL will shorten a URL, but mainly it's intended to turn crazy random-numbers-and-letters addresses into nicely-named ones, while including the domain to make it somewhat "safe" (like twi.bz does).

ryanv• 17 years ago

Are URL shorteners the new "hello world" app?

pclark7• 17 years ago

(when was the last time a hello world app got $2M in VC funding?)

barredo4• 17 years ago

In the 90's dotcom bubble? :-)

tsally• 17 years ago

Far too often, unfortunately.

Xichekolas5• 17 years ago

Yes. When I'm dealing with a new language/framework, I usually make a URL shortener. It's simple enough to not take long, yet represents a more useful learning experience than simply 'Hello World'.

pclark7• 17 years ago

I'll give a pony (and my girlfriends logo making skills) to anyone that makes a url shortener from scratch in Arc.

barredo4• 17 years ago

If i'm shortening this URL: amazon.com/permalink and amazon.ca/permalink i will get both times and url with: "amazon.twi.bz"

Wouldn't be better if you allow to put the TLD/ccTLD at first? amazonca.twi.bz/x OR amazoncom.twi.bz/x

We get transparency at the cost of a slightly longer URL. I think it's ok. And will recommend your domain to friends.

Thanks for the work

jgrahamc8• 17 years ago

1. http://amazon.com/permalink converts to http://amazon.twi.bz/f

2. http://amazon.ca/permalink converts to http://amazon.ca.twi.bz/a

Note that for non-.coms the TLD is preserved.

barredo4• 17 years ago

That's a better implementation and idea :-) Congrats

robspychala• 17 years ago

Nice! Great idea. You should look into implementing: http://sites.google.com/a/snaplog.com/wiki/short_url

cheers,

r.S.

pclark7• 17 years ago

quite a nasty bug if I try and shorten "omgponi.es" it says:

Sorry, twi.bz only understands http and https web addresses

I'd either make http:// be in the text field by default, or append http:// when a user enters a url.

jgrahamc8• 17 years ago

I'll fix that.

paraschopra• 17 years ago

I was thinking today this exactly!

seren6ipity• 17 years ago

I would suggest moving the "shorten" button to left. It is kind of obscured on the extreme right.

lucumo2• 17 years ago

I tried it on my start-ups domain. The result is interesting :)

"The web address you entered was http://rockingrackets.com/.

This has been converted to http://rockingrackets.twi.bz/a You can copy and paste it from here.

Your original web address had 26 characters, and the converted version has 30 characters."

I can see how this will always happen with the document root of any domain, so maybe you can refuse to shorten those, or make it a kind of in-your-face suggestion that it's silly to shorten a relatively short URL?

jgrahamc8• 17 years ago

And didn't it also say: "Since the original web address is, in this case, shorter than the twi.bz version it's better to use the original. "?

Xichekolas5• 17 years ago

If the original is shorter, just return the original. You can make a note as to why you gave back the original, but I think we can safely assume the user wants the shortest he can get, so give it to him.

lucumo2• 17 years ago

Ehrm... It does now in any case. I didn't see it before blushes (Seriously, how can I miss the only line on a four line page that completely invalidates the point I was trying to make?)

Anyway, that probably was a good demonstration why it should be more in-my-face.

And it also demonstrates why web browsers need to send an im-an-idiot header :(

mustpax• 17 years ago

This is a cool idea. The host name in the URL goes a long way.

But there's still some trickery that could be used with redirection, e.g. "I'm Feeling Lucky" Google URLs and the like.

Also most malicious URLs will include the payload in the request parameters. You can still do a lot of damage with a GET request. (Ask Goolge bot if you don't believe me http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/746 )

What I'm trying to say is, there's no substitute for seeing a full URL. Especially for security conscious users like the HN crowd. For the average user though this might be enough information.

Jem• 17 years ago

Just being picky, but you say on page that

"Instantly you know you'll be taken to Amazon.com and that the link is safe to click on."

but further down, you say:

"twi.bz doesn't warrant that a link is safe"

Otherwise, I'm glad you implemented this idea. It's nifty :)

marcusbooster• 17 years ago

It seems to me that url transparency is an issue for the clients to solve. Why can't Twitter (or whatever you're using) decode the short url and supply a javascript pop-up or something to tell you where its going?

axod• 17 years ago

Agreed. It's not rocket science to follow any short urls and provide the full url in the title attribute.

poutine• 17 years ago

The newly released Nambu Twitter client does just this. Does the decode inline though. Free too.

mjr578• 17 years ago

What about removing all vowels except the first one? That way it is still shorter but transparent.

trickjarrett• 17 years ago

I like that you include non .com suffixes but it does add length to the url. However it seems to me that some people may think you're trying to be malicious by using the domain.suffix as some spammers do. I'd suggest you do a replace on the . with a - or some other character.

I'm also keen to get an api or a bookmarklet :)

pieter2• 17 years ago

Yes, a bookmarklet on the main site would be very appreciated

c00p3r• 17 years ago

That is url-encoder istead of shortener. The goal should be in saving space for meaningful text.

asimjalis2• 17 years ago

I found a bug. If I try to convert this URL:

http://www.areallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally...

I get

http://.twi.bz/d

which doesn't redirect to the longer URL.

jgrahamc8• 17 years ago

I agree. That is a bug, it's because your domain name is invalid. It should have told you that.

alexk2• 17 years ago

is there any firefox plugin that "unshortens" these urls on hover?

thorax• 17 years ago

bit.ly's Firefox extension works for a good number of them: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10297

alexk2• 17 years ago

great,thanks!

asimjalis2• 17 years ago

Good job on releasing it so quickly.

c3o• 17 years ago

A problem with using the original domain as a subdomain might be that for people not familiar with your service, these URLs look more like a phishing scam than a shortened URL, quite the opposite of the intended effect ("transparency"): Would you like to go to "http://paypal.twi.bz/c"?

Keyframe• 17 years ago

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainname...

joshu• 17 years ago

    Your original web address had 28 characters, and the converted version has 29 characters.

Congrats. I guess I need to update my rant.

paul_houle• 17 years ago

How come people aren't looking at this from the other angle: a twitter client could pre-preemptively look up URLs from url shortening services and annotate the tweets with the full URLs?

For that matter, how about a twitter client with a memory? One that keeps dossiers on the people you follow?

How about a twitter client that isn't written in AIR?

enneff• 17 years ago

PeopleBrowsr does this and is an in-browser JavaScript app. http://www.peoplebrowsr.com/

Frocer• 17 years ago

What happens when you have twi.bz point to tinyurl, and tinyurl point to bit.ly, and bit.ly point back to the original twi.bz link? :P

Can I create a URL shortener infinite loop?

barredo4• 17 years ago

Idea. If you return the 'www.' instead of 'http://' at the beginning, you save 3 chars, and I think most of the Twitter clients and Twitter web create a link too.

blackguardx• 17 years ago

Your site gives me an error when I try to shorten "www.google.com"

It says that it wants an http:// in front.

You should probably fix that.

Twi.bz: the transparent URL shortener

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