Disclosure: I built, own and operate Cligs, one of the URL shorteners that was part of the 301works founding announcement last Friday.
First off, I don't know what happened between bit.ly/Betworks and tri.m. But I do take offence that 301works is a bit.ly publicity stunt.
See, I care most about the Cligs users. To me, 301works is a backup in case something bad happens to Cligs. The backup is operated by an independent (read not bit.ly) service, namely Gnip. I and others insisted on having an independent entity run it for obvious reasons.
Each URL shortener specifies the terms of transfering the data to Gnip. It can be anything from what I call "the dead man's will" option of simply locking away the data to be released on the termination of service, all the way to having a completely open data policy that the URL shortener basically says to the world "do as you please".
So, at the absolute worst, it's an offsite backup service. In reality, it's much more useful than a mere backup service. For example, if we get the details right, the Gnip API could power a URL-expanding service that takes some load off the URL shorteners' servers; this is just a basic example.
I've been talking about such a service with other owners of URL shorteners for a few months, and so there is nothing new about it. We just worked hard now given the anxiety we were seeing from our users. A lot of people worked hard to make it work in a good way, sometimes working at odd hours, to make sure that no one gets the short end of the stick.
So please, don't call 301works a bit.ly publicity stunt. It's not.
If anyone wants to talk about this more, email me: my first name (first 6 letters of my HN username) at cli.gs.
There's something I don't quite get about the 301works idea - don't they need the ___domain in order to do anything?
Let's say I run a shortener, and it's quite popular. For whatever reason, it goes bankrupt. I can give all the redirect info to 301works, but unless I also give them the ___domain then what's accomplished? A hijacker could still buy the ___domain and send all the shortened links out there to his AdWords page. 301works would know that /hjk87 goes to cnn.com, but when they hit a link to shortener.com/hjk87 it's still hijacked by the guy who controls the ___domain, no?
Or is the premise that if I have to terminate my service, I give both the data and the ___domain to 301works - in which case how is it different from just saying "give us what small assets you have left, now that you've shit down your service"?
While 301works might not be just a bit.ly stunt, it certainly was disproportionately important to bitly not to have a glaring example of the negative effects of URL shorteners staring people in the face -- they encourage link rot and offer the potential for lots of it. The potential for shorteners to disappear and break lots of links is certainly a massive flaw in their business model.
This whole link rot is massively over stated. Most short urls are used on Twitter. Who is reading old Tweets on Twitter? Almost nobody since Twitter is about now, not yesterday.
By the time you switch over to some 301works archive the links will have lost 99% of their relevancy.
I used to agree with you, but I think that both people and companies have an interest in preserving the conversation. Not every, or even most, conversations, but certainly some.
In which case you should be using your own shortener if you want to preserve your own links. Or if you're a company scanning other links then you should be resolving the short urls as you receive the entries.
First off, I don't know what happened between bit.ly/Betworks and tri.m. But I do take offence that 301works is a bit.ly publicity stunt.
See, I care most about the Cligs users. To me, 301works is a backup in case something bad happens to Cligs. The backup is operated by an independent (read not bit.ly) service, namely Gnip. I and others insisted on having an independent entity run it for obvious reasons.
Each URL shortener specifies the terms of transfering the data to Gnip. It can be anything from what I call "the dead man's will" option of simply locking away the data to be released on the termination of service, all the way to having a completely open data policy that the URL shortener basically says to the world "do as you please".
So, at the absolute worst, it's an offsite backup service. In reality, it's much more useful than a mere backup service. For example, if we get the details right, the Gnip API could power a URL-expanding service that takes some load off the URL shorteners' servers; this is just a basic example.
I've been talking about such a service with other owners of URL shorteners for a few months, and so there is nothing new about it. We just worked hard now given the anxiety we were seeing from our users. A lot of people worked hard to make it work in a good way, sometimes working at odd hours, to make sure that no one gets the short end of the stick.
So please, don't call 301works a bit.ly publicity stunt. It's not.
If anyone wants to talk about this more, email me: my first name (first 6 letters of my HN username) at cli.gs.