Sites like TinyURL.com, Shorlify and Make A Shorter Link aim to solve a problem as old as the mainstream Web itself: after database-generated Web addresses, also known as uniform resource locators (URLs), get to be a certain length, they become not only impossible to remember, but difficult to forward between some email programs that automatically insert line breaks.
In some email programs, the line breaks disrupt the hyperlink in the URL, and even prevent the recipient from copying and pasting the split link into a browser's address bar.
The URL-abbreviating services provide a brief substitute URL that redirects to the original, unwieldy and unbroken one.
"I learned about TinyURLs from other folks were using them on email lists," said Richard Smith, a computer security consultant who posts frequently to the Bugtraq security mailing list and others. "I started using them sometimes, too, because I got tired of people telling me that a URL that I sent around didn't work."
The idea of making Web addresses simpler isn't new. Before going out of business last year, a company called RealNames garnered investments by Network Solutions and Microsoft for its alternative, simplified Web address database. But that paid system never caught on with the general public, and corporate interest faded.
Now free address-substitution sites are making a go of it, hoping to earn some cash on the side.
TinyURL is run by Kevin "Gilby" Gilbertson, a 24-year-old Web developer in Minnesota. Gilbertson, an avid unicyclist, launched his site in January 2002, after writing an application that duplicated messages posted to either a Web-based forum at unicyclist.com or a corresponding newsgroup, rec.sport.unicycling.
