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| Tensioncore Design Studios: Nick Dodd Thomas Kobelsky | Shorten This! is a URL shortening tool that functions similar to TinyURL or Bit.ly and is free for anyone to use. It takes the functionality of Bit.ly (creating a hash of your previous links and displaying them to you on each visit) with the simplicity of Google (there's only one button to push on the page). | |
| As of right now, we are still in Beta and using the tncr.ws URL domain. Since we're also using four alpha-numeric variables that utilize both uppercase and lowercase letters along with the numbers 0-9, we are able to say that we have among the shortest URL Shortening tools out there. A demonstration of that can be seen here, using http://www.thomaskobelsky.com/webDesign3.html as the URL being shortened: | ||
| http://tinyurl.com/28oamae | 26 characters including "http://" | 19 characters without "http://" |
| http://bit.ly/9e2WXi | 20 characters including "http://" | 13 characters without "http://" |
| http://tncr.ws/QGGr | 19 characters including "http://" | 12 characters without "http://" |
| http://goo.gl/hSgm8 | 19 characters including "http://" | 12 characters without "http://" |
| http://ow.ly/2ouXo | 18 characters including "http://" | 11 characters without "http://" |
As you can see, we are among the shortest in the list of most common URL shortening tools. We are in the middle between Bit.ly and Ow.ly, but we do not have the CAPTCHA challenge for the user that Ow.ly has. Eliminating this allows the user to quickly create a shortened URL in under half the time as using the Ow.ly client. Not only are we near the lead for the shortest URLs, but we're also leading in simplicity and speed while still maintaining the URL tracking. That being said, we are tied with Google's new URL Shortening service called Goo.gl that seems to have many similar features as "Shorten This!" does, such as the QR Code being generated. My role in this project as the designer was to decide on a layout and how tools would operate. I wanted to go with a very minimalistic page where the most prominent object is the Shortening Area. Nick had the idea of displaying the hashed URLs, and I came up with the very sleek method of utilizing a collapsible box. I was also the one who designed the logo, and I drew my inspiration straight from Nick: When he first said the name "Shorten This!" he raised his fist and I instantly had a logo in mind. We are also incorporating a Blacklisted URL Screening (currenty in debug mode) to filter out unwanted URLs. Another area that we're going to expand into is creating an add-on for Firefox as a toolbar so "Shorten This!" (and other forth-coming Web Services) will be readily available at any time for the user. Something else that really sets our service apart from the competition is the ability to attach an email address and/or phone number to the shortened URL. These can be accessed by simply adding "-e" or "-p" to the end of the hash. We've also added the ability to add the email address and/or phone number to pre-existing hashes by attempting to shorten the original URL again and adding the email address and/or phone number to it. | ||
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