URL Shorteners


A URL Shortener is a piece of software that takes a long URL or internet address and makes it smaller.  For example, the following is a link to a posting on my blog.  

 

https://dougpete.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/exploring-the-conversation/

 

That's a pretty long URL to read to someone and have them get it correct.  With services like Twitter where you're limited to 140 characters, you can use up your quota just typing the address.  If I took the same URL and ran it through a shortener like bit.ly, it becomes:

 

http://bit.ly/hih807

 

You've got to agree that's considerably shorter.  

 

There are many shortening services available for your use.  Some of the legitimate ones that I've found and used are listed below.  Got a favourite?  Let me know.

 

Service  URL 
Binged.it not available for the public yet - but some links are coming from it - presumably Microsoft
bit.ly  http://bit.ly 
budurl http://budurl.com/
Doiop http://doiop.com/
Google  http://goo.gl 
Hootsuite http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url
Huffington Post huff.to for shortening coming from Huffington Post
is.gd http://is.gd/
ity.im http://ity.im/
j.mp http://j.mp
Mashable on.mash.to for shortening coming from Mashable
McAfee http://mcaf.ee/
Moourl.com http://moourl.com
Make Use Of muo.fm for shortening coming from Make Use Of
National Post natpo.st for articles from the National Post
Ning uses ning.it for messages coming from Ning
Posterous http://post.ly/
Sharethis shar.es from a button you can install on your website
Snipurl http://snipurl.com/site/index
SNSAnalytics http://w.sns.ly/
Stumbleupon http://su.pr/
Twitter Uses t.co as a service from Twitter itself
TINY http://tiny.cc/
tiny.ly http://tiny.ly/
TinyURL  http://tinyurl.com/ 
Tweetburner  http://tweetburner.com/ 
WordPress  wp.me from a WordPress site 
YouTube youtu.be sharing from the YouTube site