tinyurl

It has only been a week since MySpace launched its two-way sync with Twitter, but already the service has made an impact on the popular microblog.

MySpace's "lnk.ms" is now the second most used link-shortening service on Twitter, according to statistics compiled by Twitter link tracker Tweetmeme.

Over the past 24 hours, lnk.ms was included in 15.66 percent of all tweets containing links, Tweetmeme claims. It follows only Bitly, which was used in more than 69 percent of tweets featuring links to outside sources. TinyURL, Owly, and Isgd follow MySpace's lnk.ms with … Read more

So at one time before February 2008, you could get a domain name for life if you signed up for Microsoft's Office Live. Today Microsoft says it's no longer free. Even though they said it was free for life. But they did acknowledge that "It's a change." You think? Also you can now deposit your checks via iPhone. Wow.

Microsoft backtracks on free Office Live domains http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10305510-56.html

GM, eBay to team up … Read more

Twitter's dramatic rise has helped ignite an industry to shorten Web addresses to fit within 140-character messages. With the technology, though, comes a new handful of challenges.

Among the challenges are reliably connecting people to the Web sites they want to reach, keeping spam and phishing attacks at bay, and maintaining the service into the future.

Joshua Schacter, founder of Yahoo's Delicious site for storing and sharing Web bookmarks and now a Google programmer, summarized the issues in an April rant about short-URL problems. "I feel that shorteners are bad for the ecosystem as a whole," … Read more

Few people would characterize the popular and influential microblogging service Twitter as "secure." Hack attacks on Twitter, and Twitter users, appear to be increasing (latest: Twitter hit with "Don't Click" clickjacking attack).

There are two potential security issues currently plaguing the popular social network: the popular use of link shorteners like TinyURL that lead users to unknown destinations, and a single login system that some hope will be fixed with the arrival of OAuth.

Don't click on that link! Whenever I see an interesting tweet followed by a TinyURL link, I click it. I'll admit it. I don't even consider the ramifications of my actions and often, I'm surprised by where I go.

But I don't think I'm alone. TinyURL is the most common link you'll see on Twitter, but it's also one of the easiest ways for a malicious user to expose you to issues ranging from phishing scams to malware installs.

Luckily, Twitter is aware of this issue, and according to its co-founder, Biz Stone, the company is working on ways to make linking safer on the site.

"User security is absolutely a concern and we're working to make the interface safer in that regard," Stone told ZDNet blogger Jennifer Leggio. "We are looking into other ways to display shared links, for example noting whether a link goes to a picture or a video or some other media element. While more a feature, this could help in addressing some of the risk with the URL redirection."

Ginx, a new third-party service (which ironically requires your Twitter login credential to function; see next section), automatically expands shortened URLs before you click on them.

But what about stopping the use of TinyURL, Bit.ly, and other link-shortening services altogether? So far, Twitter has not indicated that it wants to do that and, as some security experts claim, it shouldn't consider that option.

Peter Gregory, a professional security expert and blogger at the Securitas Operandi blog, said he believes TinyURL use "basically comes down to trust: do you trust the source of the link, or is the creator of the link luring you into visiting a malicious Web site that will attempt to implant malware on your computer?"

Both TinyURL and Bit.ly seem poised to answer that call.

Last year, TinyURL introduced a major improvement to the service that anyone using Twitter should use: a preview feature.

TinyURL's preview feature doesn't require registration and instead asks to place a cookie on your machine. Once you surf to the company's preview page, it asks if you want to enable a TinyURL preview. If so, you only need to click the link on the site and from that moment forward, any TinyURL link you click in Twitter or elsewhere across the Web won't immediately send you to the destination site. Instead, you will be redirected to a TinyURL preview page that allows you to examine the link and decide if you want to go to the respective page.

Bit.ly, another URL-shortening service, provides a Firefox plug-in that allows you to preview links. With both solutions running, the risk of being redirected to a malicious site should be cut down considerably, though not eliminated--nothing in link security is a sure thing.

But that's just one security issue Twitter and its users are forced to confront each day.… Read more

This Firefox add-on brings the capability to TinyURLize any Web page to your toolbar and menubar. Accessible from the Tools menu or as an added toolbar icon, it'll save you time from having to go to TinyURL.com to create a shortened URL. TinyURL Creator also offers several additional features that work expand on the utility of the TinyURL concept.

Click on the toolbar button to create a TinyURL for the Web site you're looking at, which then gets automatically copied to your clipboard. From the drop-down menu that's available, though, you can save TinyURLs so your … Read more

TinyURL Generator is a new experimental Firefox extension that makes it easier to grab a TinyURL of whatever page you're on. Once installed it will automatically create and save a smaller, shorter URL from TinyURL.com when new pages are visited. The TinyURL is then copied to your clipboard for easy copying and pasting in an e-mail or IM conversation.

For frequent TinyURL users this might be a better route than using one of the many available bookmarklets since it saves you a click and a copy/paste. On the flip side, it doesn't work so well when … Read more

Thanks to the restriction on the length of posts in nanoblog services like Twitter, the world needs URL shortening services like TinyURL and similar sites. The shortening services are free, though. So one has to ask, how do they make money? And where's my cut?

There are (at least) two URL shorteners that are ad-supported. Not only do they have a revenue model, but they share their revenues with people who use them.

The new kid on the block here is Adjix. Like TinyURL, it creates short links. But the pages users get directed to get a small ad … Read more

Not content to just sit around recovering from Independence Day shenanigans this past weekend, TinyURL released a much-needed feature to its URL-shortening service that others have had for ages: vanity URLs. This means the nonsensical shortened URLs it spits out from your 1,000 character-plus links can now be changed to whatever name you want after the forward slash--that is as long as it hasn't been taken by someone else.

With the popularity of TinyURL and it's automatic integration with services like Twitter, most of the good ones have already been snatched up, so if you're looking … Read more

If you're a frequent Webware, reader you might remember Grooveshark, and Grooveshark Lite--two different but equally awesome music-sharing and listening tools. From those same folks comes TinySong, a bit of a play on large link sharing services like TinyURL. However, instead of sharing Web sites with your friends, you're linking them straight to the track.

The service uses the same built-in song search found in Grooveshark Lite, and will simply jump whoever opens the link right to the Web based jukebox. What's nice is whoever is searching will have the short link copied to their clipboard … Read more