TinyURL
|
Type of site
|
URL shortening |
|---|---|
| Owner | TinyURL LLC |
| Created by | Kevin Gilbertson |
| Revenue | Donations, Advertising |
| Slogan(s) | Making long URLs usable! |
| Website | TinyURL.com |
| Alexa rank |
 378 (April 2014[update]) |
| Registration | No |
| Launched | January 2002 |
| Current status | Active |
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 so he would be able to post links in newsgroup postings which frequently had long, cumbersome addresses.
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 such as http://tinyurl.com/2unsh in the following page. If the URL has already been requested, TinyURL will return the existing alias rather than create a duplicate entry. The short URL forwards users to the long URL.
TinyURL offers an API which allows applications to automatically create short URLs. This is done by simply reading the result returned from tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=URLENCODED_SOURCE_URL.
Short URL aliases are seen as useful because they are easier to write down, remember or pass around, are less error-prone to write, and also fit where space is limited such as IRC channel topics, email signatures, microblogs, certain printed newspapers (such as the .net Magazine or even Nature), and email clients that impose line breaks on messages at a certain length. People posting on Twitter make extensive use of shortened URLs to keep their tweets within the service-imposed 140 character limit (Twitter had used TinyURL until 2009, then it switched to bit.ly; now Twitter uses its own t.co domain for this purpose).
Starting in 2008, TinyURL allows users to create custom, more meaningful aliases. This means that a user can create descriptive URLs rather than a randomly generated address. For example, http://tinyurl.com/wp-tinyurl.
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Wikipedia