Linked by Adam S on Fri 15th May 2009 22:12 UTC
With the rise of microblogging services like Twitter and Identi.ca, the length of URLs has been the subject of much discussion. Some research has even suggested that long URLs cost us significant dollars, and that by shortening URLs, one could realize significant cost savings in bandwidth. As such, today, we're unveiling OSNe.ws, our own short URL service. OSNe.ws links are currently peppered throughout the site: you can view them by hovering over any news item, any conversation, or at the end of any story via the "Tweet this!" link. Note that these links are 301 redirected to the appropriate OSNews.com page, there is no actual content living on OSNe.ws. We hope you enjoy this new service and that it encourages you to share our links more readily. Update by AS: Because everyone seems to be so focused on the "bandwidth savings" of links, let me be very clear: the new URLs are only for your convenience and saving characters in sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Identica where you're limited on characters.
Permalink for comment 363885
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:
2009-03-27
Very interesting article, now that's some innovative analysis! That said, I don't think that making a parallel set of osne.ws URLs makes sense because you're only saving three characters in each GET request. On the other hand, the marginal savings in bandwidth are more than offset by the 301 redirect as well as all the bots that will go through both sets of links.
EDIT: I forgot that the rest of the URL after the osne.ws is also shortened. Still, is it enough to offset the 301 redirect and bots going to the same pages twice? Whatever the outcome, it's a worthy experiment, and I hope it works!
Edited 2009-05-16 00:34 UTC