When to use URL Shortening Services?

Following the popularity of social networking and microblogging services, URL Shortening Services are springing up like mushrooms. In less than a year, I have used services offered by TinyURL, bit.ly, goo.gl. I also came across some shortened URLs with a twist, i.e. diu.li (The pronunciation of the URL sounds like 屌你 in Cantonese, which means “f*ck u” in the language).

URL Shortening Services is extremely handy when we have character limit in our way of communication. Twitter only allows user to use 140 characters in a tweet, Facebook allows only 420. If I would like to post a URL and tell my friends where Twestival is going to be held by linking to a Google Street View Image, I have to copy a 381 characters long URL and include it in my tweet.

http://maps.google.com.hk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=zh-TW&geocode=&q=Staunton’s+Cafe&sll=22.38131,114.168639&sspn=0.779675,1.212616&ie=UTF8&hq=Staunton’s+Cafe&hnear=&ll=22.282976,114.152541&spn=0,359.997632&z=19&brcurrent=3,0×3404007e811b3f95:0×47c863b8fcf83784,0,0×3403ff80eb6f67b1:0×46c3c89b39011247&layer=c&cbll=22.283108,114.152709&panoid=PGP8AwzKwwO5MtvtiN8wGQ&cbp=12,235.12,,0,5

Obviously, the tweet cannot be sent as the URL is lengthy enough to exceed the character limit of Twitter.

By using URL shortening services, the link can be shortened as a URL which uses only 20 characters (in bit.ly’s case).

http://bit.ly/d0ZT09

One of the assignments that I gave my class on “Computer-aided Translation” is on Terminology Management using Google Docs. Apart from building a simple bilingual or multilingual glossary which contains the term in its source language and the corresponding translations, I suggested them to include the following fields – “Created by” (to identify the creator of the entry”, “Definition”, “Source” (to indicate where the entry or its translations is from).

Not every group follow the suggestion strictly, but the group which did includes a column of shortened URL.

The layout of the spreadsheet is definitely more presentable with shorted URLs, however, readers got no idea on where the information comes from. I don’t know where the link will take me – a press release in the government’s website? Tech spec of a certain product? A blog post? Worse, a spam/virus spreading website! Not a clue!

My stand is URL shortening service is useful when it is used with microblogging services like Twitter or 2D matrix code like QR code. However, the usage must be limited to that. As the messages are like Instant Messages, it appears for a day or two, then being lost in no where. As an active twitter user, I never dig up my first tweet, and I think I do not need to refer to the tweets I posted a week ago for a new tweet.

For comparatively formal writing like academic writing, journals, essays, I do not think it is acceptable to use URL Shortening services as people may have to refer to your articles anytime. What if the shortening service is no longer available? What if people only want to know where the information comes from but do not want to verify themselves? Providing a full URL in this case can give people a better understanding on the website without really opening the browser.

In short, Shortened URL looks good, but not for formal writing.

[Via http://uituit.wordpress.com]