For example, you probably wouldn't bother using TinyURL to refer to the iTWire home page "itwire.com" which converts to "tinyurl.com/6aedc7" and is no saving at all. The only reason you'd do it this way is if you had a style guide policy of referencing each and every resource via its TinyURL shortcut.

But using the TinyURL approach does comes in handy for referencing my iTWire blogging section "itwire.com/content/blogsection/47/1135/"  as "tinyurl.com/5fw5mf"

Note that all the examples deliberate omitting the "http://" prefix. This is favoured by web journalists, since it looks neater and saves valuable screen space in print (even though not a precise rendering of the full URLs).

As of August 2008, there's a new player in the field, and it may be setting a scorching pace. It's called bit.ly (the appendage "ly" looks cute, and indicates it's a Libyan domain registration).

It does the same as the others, for example yielding the NASA shuttle and rocket launch schedules site "www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/schedule.html" as "bit.ly/Flayz"

It goes a bit further, allowing you to try entering (optionally) a preferred keyword string. So when I entered "NASA_schedule" it gave me the friendlier short URL "bit.ly/NASA_schedule" (which may not be quite as short, but certainly gives more sense of meaning to the short URL).

However there's a lot more to bit.ly than this.

PLEASE READ ON...