[dkersten]

The former. It shows the reader not only where I'm sending them, but even gives them an idea of what to expect, not to mention the whole dead links problem that will inevitably occur when these sights finally go down.

What I would normally do is something like this "<loads of text> Check out my map here [1] <more text>" and at the end put "[1] http...", that way a giant ten page url doesn't interfere with the message, yet I don't have to shorten it either. If I think the precipitant won't understand what I mean, I'd put more details in, eg [1 below]

The ONLY place where I'd consider using a url shortener is printed material, since its easier to type in by hand than a giant url, but this has the same dead link problem, especially if printed in magazines.

[catone]

I like your footnote idea, though I think it seems fairly unnatural for casual communication. To me, short URLs seem like the more user-friendly solution.

I'm also still not sold on the dead link problem for two reasons.

1. You're already relying on one site (in this case Google) not to go down or change its dynamic URL patterns. Certainly adding another layer increases the chances of a dead link, but any time you link to something on the web you're taking a risk of sending someone to an error page.

2. Most instances in which you'd use a short URL -- such as email -- are for instant communication in which the recipient is likely to visit that link in the next day or two. In other words, you wouldn't link to a short URL in the body of your web page or blog (something with more permanence on which you want to be sure the link works months or even years from now), but for email or Twitter messages, which are generally fleeting and timely, that matters less. As long as the link works right now then all is good. If the person visiting the links wants to save it for later, they'll more than likely bookmark it, cutting the shortener out of the loop anyway.

[dkersten]

Sure, but it doesn't change the "Oh, some random site, I have to click on it to see what it is" vs "oh, its google maps, and I can also see the street in the url, i'll save that for later" loss of information in shortened urls.

I dunno, you can use url shorteners if you want, but Im not convinced of their usefulness, thats all.

[bruceboughton]

1. The dead link problem is that Google, for example, can't control whether a bit.ly link will work but they can ensure maps.google.com links will always work if they want to. And they have a bigger incentive to ensure this than bit.ly do (since they consider their Maps service to be an important service).

2. True, but there is a vast amount of valuable information held in tweets (along with the noise), each with a permalink. A tweet's permalink is useless if it contains a shortened URL which no longer works. Do we really want this body of information to become useless at soon as URL-shortener-of-the-week loses funding and turns its servers off?