Nambu trims tr.im URL shortener

Stephen Withers
Monday, 10 August 2009 12:18

Business IT - Technology

The tr.im URL shortener is being shut down in the face of ongoing costs and the absence of monetisation opportunities.

The tr.im URL shortener is closed for new links, but the good news for users is that existing links will continue to redirect until the end of 2009 at the earliest.

By that time, tr.im links will be at least three months old, so the demise  of the service should have little impact.

The two main reasons for using URL shorteners are in tweets (where bit.ly is the default) and in print publications.

Neither has a particularly long life. After all, Twitter asks "What are you doing" (not "What were you doing last year?"), and yesterday's newspaper is today's fish and chip wrapper (or pet cage liner, or...).

You also see shortened URLs in instant messages and in replies to blog posts, but you need to trust the sender isn't trying to lure you to a malicious site. Given the existence of malware that does exactly that, it's probably better to avoid such links completely.

Fortunately, some shorteners (eg TinyURL.com) will optionally display the full URL before taking you to the destination.

So why is tr.im on the way out? Please read on.