What If TinyURL Went Dark? Twitter Users Beware
Have you ever asked yourself what would happen if TinyURL (or, any one of the other 3rd party URL shortening services) went dark? Typically a mundane issue and ridiculous question, but if you’re a huge fan of Twitter you’ll quickly understand the potential ramifications of such a problem.
For those that have spent (some might say wasted) hundreds of hours tweeting about the archaic and obscure, these TinyURLs serve as the lifeline between a Twitter visitor and the destination site. If TinyURL redirect performance lags, or even worse the servers go down completely, millions of short URLs on Twitter are useless.
Think twice about your strategy for implementing and utilizing third party URL shorting systems. Ideally, use your own short domain and customize it to provide the functionality that you’ll need. And, don’t forget, make sure you’re using 301 redirects. Check out my attempt at creating a simple short URL system at http://icrsng.com. With some “borrowed” php code, a cheap Apache server, 2 hours of trial and error time, you’ll be ready to go.
In the end, you’ll sleep better at night knowing that you have complete control of your customers’ user experience – from initial tweet to the final site destination.
