Thats Interesting

The review team at odinjobs.com showcases up and coming companies and their products. Who knows one of them may be the next Google.

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Honey, I Shrunk the URL

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DwarfURL launched in April 2007 at Pawtucket, Rhode Island by David Berube, can shorten a large web address with just a simple click. Give your original URL to their little dwarves and watch them shrink it, anywhere from an unsightly 250 characters to a sleek 16 characters.

Why Is It Exciting?
A shorter URL makes it easier for people to use your URL or email it. And why is this earth-shatteringly important? Given the rise of “Twitter� and mobiles to access the net and share content, a long URL eats up precious character space. So if you are not the right size, you’re going to be left out of the burgeoning mobile-net market.

The Dwarves At Work
DwarfURL has not restricted itself only to shortening URLs, but goes further by allowing users to track the number of visitors. The site has also got its Firefox extension taped. This feature allows you to simply click a button in your browser and get a shortened URL automatically.

With a database at their fingertips, the company is all set for new features like tracking popular links, etc. The services are free, for DwarfURL has gone the advertising route to generate revenues.

Lockergnome for instance finds DwarfURL fascinating

"DwarfURL does that job when it comes to giving you a quick and easy way of creating short URLs out of long ones. The magic does not end there, though. It also promises to give you stats for your link, so you can keep up with who’s clicking and why."

The competition is (no puns intended) from tinyURL.com, but as mashable sums it aptly:

TinyURL + Stats = DwarfURL

The Long And Short Of It – A Chat With DwarfURL

1. What inspired the start of DwarfURL?

TinyURL. I’m the CEO of Swift Blue LLC, we make small web applications that go to market quickly. I saw that lots of people were using a short URL service for various things, and I recognized that we could do it a bit better, so we did.

2. What types of programs were used to build Dwarfurl?

dwarfURL is built in PHP and uses a MySQL database. We made the graphics in Adobe Illustrator and most of our coding is done in DreamWeaver.

3. Who are your ideal users?

Those that install the FireFox extension and repeatedly use our service!

4. How is Dwarfurl superior to your competition?

We offer more information than anyone else in this industry. Users can track their link shrinking history as well as their analytical statistics for the links they’ve created. We also offer a FireFox extension that was developed directly with dwarfURL, which, I don’t believe any other short URL service offers.

5. What is your opinion on the growth of Firefox over the last few years?

I’m glad to see it become more “mainstream�. I’ve been using it for a few years now, and I only open up Internet Explorer to check our web development to ensure that it looks the same in all browsers.

6. How significant is the problem of a long url?

I’d say that the problem is a bit new in a way. More and more consumers will be getting high-speed internet on their phone, and they may want to send a link to a friend via SMS. SMS messages have a limit of 160 characters and a good number of links will exceed that limit. Also with Twitter becoming more popular a lot of people send URL’s to their friends this way. Again, Twitter has a 160 character limit, so a short URL service is definitely needed.

7. What sites or businesses would make great partners for Dwarfurl?

The most obvious at this time is Twitter. But we’d like to make a move into the developing mobile market where I think URL shortening services may have their biggest impact. We also have plans to implement dwarfURL into FamFridge (www.famfridge.com) which is a quasi-stealth startup I am the CEO of.

Dwarf – Small And Deadly!

Be in or be dead. Services like DwarfURL are just indications of how mobiles are going to be the biggest influencers on web applications, something we had already predicted in our earlier post on Gumiyo. So DwarfURL has the advantage of being in the right space at the right time and given their penchant for adding value to their offering, this little Dwarf is soon to hit it big.

Posted by Sally Richardsson       Posted at 01:18AM Jun 14, 2007 by Sally Richardsson   


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