Joshua schachter, founder of the Delicious social bookmarking service, weighs in on url shorteners.
- any phone that can run a web browser and thus follow links can also run a proper client, and doesn’t have to hew to the SMS character limit.
- Shorteners are relatively easy and lightweight to set up. Adding a simple interstitial before the redirect provides an obvious way to monetize. And maybe someday all the link data will be worth something.
- With a shortening service, you’re adding something that acts like a third DNS resolver, except one that is assembled out of unvetted PHP and MySQL, without the benevolent oversight of luminaries like Dan Kaminsky and St. Postel.
- A huge proportion of shortened links are just a disguise for spam
- If the shortener accidentally erases a database, forgets to renew its domain, or just disappears, the link will break.
Well-reasoned responses to a new service in which few people are considering the negative implications.