dasBlonde - shrinkster.com is pretty cool...but what happens if they go south?

Thursday, January 06, 2005

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shrinkster.com is pretty cool...but what happens if they go south?

I learned something new last night: shrinkster.com

I guess I had heard my geek friends discussing urls with this domain before, but didn't really probe into it (that must have been my other 55% non-geek-personality taking over). So it's really cool, when you have to rattle off urls verbally (say on a radio show taping) or want to deliver a presentation and give attendees a single short url to go for everything. So it generates a shrinkster.com/bla address for you (where bla is some short value like 31g).

What I want to know is, since shrinkster.com has virtually no company information on the site and no advertising...not to mention no freaking indication that they will be in business (if there is a business) for any length of time...then how can I possibly create shrinkster urls that I can guarantee for some lifetime?

I think I'll only use it for transient purposes...related to phone conversations and live events...to ease in verbal delivery...

1/6/2005 10:08 PM Cool Tools | Comments [8] | View reactions | Trackback

Friday, January 07, 2005 7:27:06 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

URL123 is nice, too. They let you pick your link id: www.url123.com/january5presentation for example. Also no guarantee of permanence.

Jon Galloway

Friday, January 07, 2005 9:56:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

That's a really nice feature to pick the link, more useful when the link is going to be "permanent" and therefore should be more meaningful.

Shrinkster benefit is that is generates the url so you don't have to care, keeps it short, and nice for transient ("go here") phone conversations.

Now, if we could just trust them for long term success? Dead links are the bane of the Internet.

Michele Leroux Bustamante

Monday, January 10, 2005 4:17:08 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Or just run your own. I wrote one in a couple hours...

Chris Kinsman

Thursday, January 13, 2005 3:49:01 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Chris, Now we're talking :)

Michele Leroux Bustamante

Wednesday, January 19, 2005 9:07:25 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Hey guys. I’m the creator of Shrinkster.com and I just wanted to let you know that I have every intention of keeping the site running till I’m old and gray (distant future). Even then, I picture myself rewriting the site in .NET 2030 just for kicks. Please use the site and don’t worry about it going offline. I actually have plans to make some requested improvements and to move the app to a more dedicated environment (to improve perf). If for some unforeseeable reason I cannot afford to keep the site running, I’ll be sure to find someone that can. I can’t image it coming to that though.