Can rev="canonical" Replace URL-Shortening Services? 354
Chris Shiflett writes "There's a new proposal ('URL shortening that doesn't hurt the Internet') floating around for using rev="canonical" to help put a stop to the URL-shortening madness. In order to avoid the great linkrot apocalypse, we can opt to specify short URLs for our own pages, so that compliant services (adoption is still low, because the idea is pretty fresh) will use our short URLs instead of TinyURL.com (or some other third-party alternative) replacements."
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"Great link apocolypse" WAT? (Score:2, Informative)
Please, more comments, or I'll be forced to read the actual article. I don't want to be kicked off slashdot for RtFA...
Try to avoid reading the article, because it's pretty nonsensical. It may be the beer I was drinking, but I didn't really get what they are talking about.
Re:I have an easier solution: (Score:3, Informative)
Arbitrary (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Solution to a problem that doesn't exist (Score:2, Informative)
"rel," not "rev" (Score:2, Informative)
It's "rel," not "rev."
Re:"Great link apocolypse" WAT? (Score:5, Informative)
short summary: everyone should adopt this NewTechnology(tm) because it will make twitter work better
1. If everyone uses it
2. if twitter implements support for it
of course it's pretty much useless for everyone else
Re:"Great link apocolypse" WAT? (Score:5, Informative)
This story should be tagged Twitter.
This guy seems to be focusing on the meaningful identifier aspect of URL shortening for use in a space limited context - without actually confining his suggestion to use in that sort of environment.
He puts forth other reasons for using this method such as control over the persistence of the shortened URL, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me... and then he goes back to mentioning Twitter.
Re:I have an easier solution: (Score:4, Informative)
1999 called, it wants its charges back.
People pay for SMS in your country? Here even pay and go plans have unlimited SMS bundles.
And I can't even parse this statement.. "or pay $.15 per 140 characters when one of your idiot friends 'texts' you"
How can your friends make you pay for SMS? Do you have some way of sending bills over it or something?
Re:Arbitrary (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, it's 140 bytes, not 140 characters. The GSM 3.38 alphabet [smsmac.com] is 7-bit, thus allowing one to squeeze 160 characters into this 140 bytes. The exception is a few punctuation characters, which take up 2 bytes each. In order to transport characters not covered by the GSM 3.38 alphabet, one must use the 16-bit UCS-2 encoding which thus limits one to 70 characters. There's no technical reason restricting Twitter from allowing 140 rather than 160 characters, unless there's an issue I am not aware of (perhaps one or more major mobile networks are broken and only allow 140 characters rather than 140 bytes?).
Re:"Great link apocolypse" WAT? (Score:2, Informative)
Even better:
me@myhost:~$ whois tinyurl.com
Whois Server Version 2.0
[snip]
Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 27-Jun-2008.
Record expires on 27-Jan-2018.
Record created on 27-Jan-2002.
Here we have the exact date of creation for TinyURL.com!
So, you're right. TinyURL celebrated its 7th birthday in January.
Re:I have an easier solution: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
This whole url shortening shit started to pick up steam few days ago when Digg introduced Diggbar - a hybrid of frame and url-shortening that framed other sites and did not display the proper site address. John Gruber went nuts and modified his blog to redirect users to a special page [digg.com]. Then he blogged for 2 days non-stop how to make diggbar go away. Since he's widely read around the web everyone started chiming in with their opinions on the general idea of url shortening services and how it hurts or helps the web.
Nerd bullshit. And not the good kind.
Re:WTF? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Arbitrary (Score:5, Informative)
There's no technical reason restricting Twitter from allowing 140 rather than 160 characters, unless there's an issue I am not aware of (perhaps one or more major mobile networks are broken and only allow 140 characters rather than 140 bytes?).
20 are reserved for the user name. The co-founder mentioned this during his interview [colbertnation.com] on The Colbert nation.
Re:I have an easier solution: (Score:4, Informative)
US wireless carriers charge on both ends -- both the receiver AND the sender will pay the 15 cents per message, assuming neither one of them has an unlimited plan. I think this charge used to be 10 cents, but was raised to 15 cents last year. Or maybe it was 15 cents and was raised to 20 cents. I have no idea, but either way it is terrible. I think plans are typically $5/month for 200 'texts' or $15/month for unlimited.
And don't even get me started on MMS messages. I received my first MMS spam the other day. My first thought was "ooh, nice tits", but my second thought was "$#%&, I probably just got charged $3.00 for this spam!"
Re:but will they be cute? (Score:3, Informative)
Parent posted goatse-link. I suggest you don't click it unless you are into that.
Re:Solving the wrong problem (Score:3, Informative)
Erm... mobile phone texting is still called SMS. GSM designates the whole mobile communication standard, which also includes being able to launch a web browser on the phone and follow HTML links.
It was not the shortening at issue though (Score:4, Informative)
It wasn't even the Digg Bar exactly. Gruber didn't like it because of the obvious reasons (breaks bookmarks, history, hides the site, etc) but mainly because the DiggBar was turned on by default for all users. Other sites have things like the Diggbar, but no-one really complained about them because users had to turn them on by default.
If he alone had not liked it you would not have seen the rush to block it from all quarters. I as a user despised it myself, and am happy to see all framing mechanisms die a horrible death.
Shortening services that use a redirect, he and others have no issue with.