Ask YC: Feedback on an alternative to TinyURL | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Feedback on an alternative to TinyURL

oneryng.com

It's quite a long URL, so not really "tiny".

The idea itself has been tried several times before. CompuServe (or was that AOL?) was one of the first to have keyword-based navigation. A few years ago, I met an entrepreneur in London, UK, who was building a company through which you create a unique number for yourself, and that gets associated with all your contact details - sort of like a phone number but to all your contact details (a bit like a LinkedIn public profile I guess). There are other variations.

Personally, I find this way of navigation weird and I don't like it. Also, the domain name your service uses (oneryng.com) doesn't really brand the service in a useful way (but I do love the domain name!).

Also, what's your unique selling proposition? I can't see one!

Apologies if I seem a bit blunt. Please correct me if I misunderstood something.

No, not at all blunt, this is exactly what I'm looking for. The unique selling proposition is that I plan on shifting this idea to the mobile market, since typing long URLs on a numpad is complete torture, and am just fleshing out the idea for now as a proof of concept.

Thanks for the background information, it's very helpful. Any good suggestions for a short, succinct domain name that's to the point?

As a mobile user, I know exactly what you're talking about. But I have to say that the new virtual keyboards from HTC and others have solved most of the bad input problems.

Also, search engines are becoming more and more important for navigation on mobile devices because as you say, typing long URLs is not fun but finding them is easier. How will you compete with Google and Yahoo!?

I wouldn't use it just because the keyphrase is mutable. It is bad enough that TinyURL obscures the destination, but with the possibility for the destination changing without even the submitters knowledge makes the service completely untrustworthy.

Maybe I'm missing something...

Yeah, the idea is for people who want an immutable keyphrase to contact me for some sort of contract where they ask for a specified amount of time for the keyphrase to stay constant for some reasonable sum of money.

Well, if that's your business plan, it seems like its nothing more than an extension of domains... which provides no benefit to the customer. Why spend money on a "keyphrase" when you can spend money on the actual domain?

I don't see what possible reason a person would have to pay for a keyphrase? Most people use sites like tinyurl to send links to friends, why would I pay for a service like that? If I was a company, I would just buy a domain with that keyphrase (e.g. www.keyphrase.com) or do something like companyname.com/keyphrase

I think a better monetization plan would be to load the long url link in an iframe and put ads on the top of the page.

I'm trying to capitalize on the trend of searching for a company slogan or phrase instead of going to the actual site. A lot of businesses are posting ads (non-internet) that say "Go to Yahoo.com and search for <company name>" instead of saying "Go to <company name>.com/<project name>".

This trend should increase with the proliferation of mobile web browsing; typing a domain name is a pain, and I hope to make browser plugins for each mobile browser that capitalizes on this new development.

http://qurl.co.uk/ offers something for toolbar access

I'm most interested in whether the idea is easy to understand, any feedback is very much appreciated!

The idea is easy to understand to anyone that knows that tinyurl is. Otherwise, they might be confused. I think a screenshot of the address bar showing a long url and your short "keyphrase" one would help explain your site to your users. I also don't particularly like the design (e.g. the font, black background, blue links...) I'd suggest a simple white page, something like the google homepage.

The screenshot idea is genius, I'm going to try that. Simple is good, I'll definitely take that into account.

you can overwrite people's keyphrases, and when you hit "back" to the main page the captcha thing isn't visible.

also captchas suck.

I know, I hate captchas myself, but I don't want spammers to hammer the server with porn sites or anything like that.

tinyurl doesn't have a captcha.

neither does comments or account creation on YC.

I removed it, I understand now - it's better to wait until entirely too much spam arrives before implementing CAPTCHAs.

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