Announcing squrl.us
Squrl.us (Short, Quick URLs) is a side project I've been putting together over some weekends and weeknights lately. Essentially it is a tinyurl clone, but with added functionality, and a cuter look.
It's all really quite simple: You enter a long and unruly url, press the Scurry button, and in return get a number of short, quick urls that are easy to remember, jot down, or communicate verbally.
For example, the url http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/leute/0,1518,510187,00.html is converted to
- squrl: http://squrl.us/2b
- mobile: http://m.squrl.us/2b
- cache: http://c.squrl.us/2b
- translated: http://t.squrl.us/2b
The squrl is just a redirection to the original link, the mobile link uses Skweezer.net to render a mobile-friendly version, the cache link goes to the Google cache for the url, and the translated link is to Google's automatic translation service (note this only works for non-English pages).
The whole thing is running on ASP.NET 3.5 with C# 3.0 and Linq (for the heck of it), and SQL Server Express 2005 (this may be migrated to MySQL 5.0 due to server constraints).
2 Comments:
now how to turn this into $$$$...
By
Jesse FitzGibbon, at Tuesday, October 09, 2007 10:05:00 AM
Well, it would have to be ad-driven. If there was a reliable ad-network that server impression-only ads that were meant to be seen for only 1-2 seconds (semi-subliminal advertising), then these could be put on the redirect page.
A planned feature, sending squrls by sms, can be padded with similar short ads. Since most squrls are likely to be no more than 25 characters, that leaves 140 or so for ad space.
But in general, I don't think a service like this (unless propelled by Google/Yahoo/MSN/AOL/Porn/etc) would EVER make any significant revenue.
$ or $$ maybe, but not $$$ or $$$$...
By
Oskar Austegard, at Tuesday, October 09, 2007 4:02:00 PM
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