Filed under: Internet, Productivity, Web services, Freeware
urlTea - a shorter, customizable URL tool
Always one to voice a complaint when tools aren't quite getting the job done however, Chris tweeted a frustration with the way TinyURL works its magic, and Brett Taylor heard loud and clear. Thus, urlTea was born, a TinyURL-like service that brings some really unique features to the URL-shortening table. First, upon entering a URL at urlTea.com, it of course returns a shortened version but also immediately copies it to the clipboard (even on a Mac; nice). urlTea also offers a bookmarklet for instantly shortening any URL when you're far and away from urlTea's site, as well as an IM bot for the ultimate in keeping friendly tools close at hand. A very unique feature, however, is the ability to add any text to the end of a urlTea url with the inclusion of a question mark. This url for example: http://urltea.com/y3 can also be written as http://urltea.com/y3?coolest-site-evar, which offers a lot of flexibility if you want to add any relevant information for your lucky recipients.
As if this all wasn't enough innovation, the bottom of urlTea's about page lists quite a few features that are still to come. Not bad for a product borne out of a response to someone's twitterings!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joost Schuur said 8:34PM on 3-22-2007
The ability to add a description after a question mark works with most URLs:
http://www.downloadsquad.com/?JustLookAtThisExample
Unless the web site actually looks at the 'query string' sent along side the URL after the question mark, it'll just be ignored. The reason this is an innovation over TinyURL is because apparently TinyURL does try and use it, and chokes if you oass it random text.
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