Comments on: Twitter: Leave my URLs Alone

By: davi djames

davi djames — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:19:12 +0000

The problem you describe is more of an externality caused by the limit on tweet-length.
I think twitter are doing fine by the standards of the web.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:26:25 +0000

While I agree that Twitter should only shorten links when needed, you could (and should) have used the direct link to the comic XKCD provides. http://xkcd.com/462/

By: Dan Dascalescu

Dan Dascalescu — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:57:48 +0000

I hate this SO much about Twitter, and posted on their http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/why_the_mandatory_tinyurls board.

@Andres Min: that trick doesn’t work any more. Twitter has switched to bit.ly, but even if you choose a custom name on bit.ly and tweet that, Twitter will still shorten it.

By: Smitty

Smitty — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 03:17:37 +0000

@MaD: There is no way that any business is going to give up a nice human readable URL for any current or proposed standard. Nor a future business going to give up the opportunity to create one. The URL names business use are tied too close to their marketing strategy, and the URL’s people register for themselves are like personal license plates for the information highway (sorry, shameless use of a pun). That’s just not going to change. No more than 1 800 TICKET-1 will change (for those speeders who need their tickets “adjusted”). URL’s, 1 (800) numbers, even catchy business names like “Pampered Pets” have always been meaningful as is, and will always continue to be. I wouldn’t want Twitter changing my URL if it conveyed something meaningful.

I think the heart of the argument is Eric and others would like the option of whether to allow twitter to change or omit information that they as authors deem important enough to risk the max twitter length to use. Choice is usually a good thing, given enough rope….

By: MaD HuNGaRIaN

MaD HuNGaRIaN — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:29:40 +0000

Eric, with all due respect, I think @Dhanji is correct. Web 3.0 will go even further to eliminate the relevance of URLs. “SEO Friendly” and “human readable” URLs have no place in the semantic web and will be rendered irrelevant. If you don’t believe me, read more about it here: http://snipurl.com/2w5ik.

By: Eric Burke

Eric Burke — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:15:27 +0000

@Dhanji that is a great “classroom theory” answer that does not reflect the reality of how people use Twitter. I could not disagree more.

By: Dhanji R. Prasanna

Dhanji R. Prasanna — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:51:22 +0000

Eric,

In strictly REST terms, URLs ought to be opaque and the hypermedia directory (i.e. the twitter message) ought to describe them for human or machine consumption. You should not be embedding information about the resource in the URL (see http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#uri-opacity for details). The problem you describe is more of an externality caused by the limit on tweet-length.

I think twitter are doing fine by the standards of the web. That we are abusing URLs to our own ends (embedded semantics) ought not to reflect poorly on twitter.

Dhanji.

By: Moo

Moo — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:04:24 +0000

It is dumber than dumb… but what do you expect from Twitter? Twitter was not thought out at all – nobody expected it to survive more than a week.
JLS

By: Smitty

Smitty — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 04:25:14 +0000

@Eric “Changing what people write without asking permission is in fact a misquotation:” And we know, it’s hard enough not getting misquoted on your own blog without Twitter screwing with your URL’s.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:02:15 +0000

I feel your pain. Worried about Rick-Rolling urls? tinyurl’s preview option is your friend. http://tinyurl.com/preview.php . Doesn’t solve the real problem (context) but does add some safety.