Wide URLs with WideURL.com

April 1, 2006 in Amusements, Projects | Comments

For years now, I’ve been a great fan of TinyURL.com. That web site allows you to create a short representation of a longer URL, for use in email.

One of the problems with those URLs, though, and with URLs in general, is that they’re misleadingly short. A particular web page may have a lot of significance, but if it doesn’t take up much of your message, there’s just no way for the recipient to see this at a glance.

WideURL.com fixes this. It creates an URL with more visual impact.

For example, here’s the WideURL for this post: http://wideurl.com/aitch-tee-tee-pea-colon-double-slash-oh-ess-tee-double-ee-ell-ee-dot-see-oh-em-slash-aye-are-see-aitch-eye-vee-ee-ess-slash-two-double-zero-six-slash-zero-four-slash-doubleyou-eye-dee-ee-you-are-ell. That’s much more significant-looking than simply http://osteele.com/archives/2006/04/wideurl, I think you can agree.

Viewing 7 Comments

dvb 2 years ago 1 point
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dee oh you bee ell ee why oh you ee ee ee ell ell ee ell ell , dee oh you bee ell ee why oh you ee ee ee ell ell ee ell ell , oh aitch ee ell ell ee why ee vee ee ee ee ee ai are ee ! ee en ee why ee ess ee ee ee ee tee ee ee oh aitch ee ess ess ee ee ee ee doubleyou aitch why oh aitch why oh you ai eye ai are ee ee ee ee ess ess tee ee ee ee why ee ee ell ell ee ell ell ai eye tee ee ee ee why ee tee ee ee . --> dee ee ee vee ee ee bee ee ee

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Lyndon 2 years ago 1 point
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Hi Oliver, a very entertaining April Fools hack ;-).

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Ryan Parman 2 years ago 1 point
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You don't seem to have left any other way of getting in touch with you... not even a contact form or anything. Your svn2ics tool is returning PHP errors in the generated calendars. I was hoping that either you can fix it, or you can release the source so that the rest of us can use this (I assume -- I haven't seen it functional yet) seemingly awesome tool.

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http://simplepie.org

anina.net 2 years ago 1 point
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i am thinking of using dreamhost as my host and blog platform. what do you think about their service?

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http://www.anina.net

Lazlo Steele 2 years ago 1 point
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You seem to have the same last name as me. What a coincidence.

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http://drbubonicus.blogspot.com

Rinogo 1 year ago 1 point
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I'm seconding Ryan's frustrations. I've been trying to find a way to contact you, Oliver, but I can't find a way to do so. If you're afraid of spammers, perhaps you should try something like http://warproof.com.

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Vijay 1 year ago 1 point
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why-oh-you-slant-tick-are-ee-space-eye-en-
space-aye-space-bee-aye-double-ell-double-oh-en

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