:TinyURL
{{Short description|URL shortening service}}
{{Infobox website
| name = TinyURL
| logo = TinyURL logo February 2021.svg
| type = URL shortening
| registration = Yes
| owner = TinyURL LLC
| author = Kevin Gilbertson
| launch_date = {{start date and age|2002|1}}
| current_status = Active
| revenue = Subscription, Advertising
| url = {{URL|www.tinyurl.com}}
}}
TinyURL is a URL shortening web service, which provides short aliases for redirection of long URLs. Kevin Gilbertson, a web developer, launched the service in January 2002 as a way to post links in newsgroup postings which frequently had long, cumbersome addresses. TinyURL was the first notable URL shortening service and is one of the oldest still currently operating.
Service
The TinyURL homepage includes a form which is used to submit a long URL for shortening. For each URL entered, the server adds a new alias in its hashed database and returns a short URL. According to the website, the shortened URLs will never expire.
TinyURL offers an API which allows applications to automatically create short URLs.{{Cite web |title=TinyURL Developer API Documentation |url=https://tinyurl.app/api |access-date=2022-08-08 |website=tinyurl.com}}
Short URL aliases are seen as useful because they are easier to write down, remember or distribute. They also fit in text boxes with a limited number of characters allowed. Some examples of limited text boxes are IRC channel topics, email signatures, microblogs (such as Twitter, which notably limited all posts to 140 characters at first, and later 280 characters), certain printed newspapers (such as .net magazine or even Nature), and email clients that impose line breaks on messages at a certain length.
Starting in 2008, TinyURL allowed users to create custom, more meaningful aliases. This means that a user can create descriptive URLs rather than a randomly generated address. For example, https://tinyurl.com/wp-tinyurl leads to the Wikipedia article about the website.
=Preview short URLs=
To preview the full URL from the short TinyURL, the user can visit TinyURL first and enable previews as a default browser cookie setting or copy and paste the short URL into the browser address bar, and prepend the short tinyurl.com/x with preview.tinyurl.com/x. Another preview feature is not well documented at the TinyURL site, but the alternative shortened URL with preview capability is also offered to shortcut creators as an option at the time of the creation of the link.{{Cite web | url=http://security.thejoshmeister.com/2009/04/how-to-preview-shortened-urls-tinyurl.html | title=How to Preview Shortened URLs (TinyURL, bit.ly, is.gd, and more) | date=2009-04-11 | access-date=2014-05-30 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140325150505/http://security.thejoshmeister.com/2009/04/how-to-preview-shortened-urls-tinyurl.html | archive-date=2014-03-25 | url-status=live }}
Impact
{{main|URL shortening}}
=Similar services=
The popularity of TinyURLs influenced the creation of at least 100 similar websites.[http://mashable.com/2008/01/08/url-shortening-services/ 90+ URL Shortening Services] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080830002202/http://mashable.com/2008/01/08/url-shortening-services/ |date=2008-08-30 }}, Mashable.Com, 8 January 2008, page 84 Most are simply domain alternatives while some offer additional features.
=X (formerly Twitter)=
People posting on X (formerly Twitter) often made extensive use of shortened URLs to keep their tweets within the service-imposed 140-character limit. Twitter used TinyURL until 2009, before switching to Bit.ly.{{cite web|first=Joe|last=Weisenthal|date=May 6, 2009|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-switches-from-tinyurl-to-bitly-2009-5|title=Twitter Switches from TinyURL to Bit.ly|work=Business Insider|access-date=February 15, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130308105113/http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-switches-from-tinyurl-to-bitly-2009-5|archive-date=March 8, 2013|url-status=live}} Currently, X uses its own t.co domain for this purpose, automatically shortening links longer than 31 characters using its t.co domain.
TinyURL-whacking
The TinyURL method of allocating shorter web addresses has inspired an exploration activity known as TinyURL-whacking. Random letters and numbers can be appended after the first forward slash tinyurl.com/, in an attempt to find and reveal interesting sites without finding and copying a previously known referrer's link.{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/2004/03/honey-i-shrunk-the-url/ |title=Honey, I Shrunk the URL |magazine=Wired |date=March 16, 2004 |access-date=November 17, 2016 |author=Katie Dean |quote=So the 24-year-old Web developer from Blaine, Minnesota, launched TinyURL.com in January 2002, a free site that converts huge strings of characters into more manageable snippets. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221075104/https://www.wired.com/2004/03/honey-i-shrunk-the-url/ |archive-date=December 21, 2016 |url-status=live }}New Scientist, vol. 179, issue 2404, 19 July 2003, page 84
See also
References
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