Google, Facebook in URL shortening: pioneers should keep innovating

Ref. zdnet.com A URL used to say something about a Web site’s owner - a memorable name that replaced a complex set of numbers that were used to access a Web page. Then things changed. In today’s world of Twitter tweets and mobile texts, where long drawn-out URL links are character hogs, services like tinyurl and bit.ly came on board and showed us that there was value in shortcut URLs with only a few characters. These services should be thanked for introducing us to URL shortening and providing a service for us early adopters. We appreciated it. But the time has come for the big guys to step in and take over the URL shortening game, or so it would appear. Today, Google announced goo.gl, a URL shortening service that’s being introduced as part of the browser toolbar and the Feedburner RSS service but will likely end up being a more broadly integrated feature. (Techmeme) Meanwhile, there was also some blogger buzz today about fb.me, a URL shortening service that Facebook is reportedly testing. http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=28492