The technical name for a web address is URL, which stands for Universal Resource Locator. Some URLs can be painfully long. For instance, the URL for one of my recent blog posts is:
azk12.org/blog/archives/19-Use-Google-Search-to-Define-a-Word.html
It doesn't matter how long a URL is as long as you can just click it. But, if you have to type it in yourself, long URLs cause problems. One little mistake and your web browser will not take you to the correct page. Often teachers write URLs on chalkboards or in handouts for students to visit. Out of a class of students, a handful always seem unable to enter a URL correctly. The longer the URL, the greater the number of students who just don't type it correctly and do not arrive at the proper webpage.
Before writing a URL on the board or putting it in a handout, you can make it shorter. There are several free services where you input a URL and it shrinks it down to something much more manageable. The most popular site for reducing the size of URLs is
TinyURL.com. I copied the long blog post address above and pasted it into TinyURL. Here's the result:
tinyurl.com/by8lsv
This shorter URL redirects web browser to the longer URL. Instead of typing in 73 characters, the shorter URL has 25. All web addresses shortened by TinyURL start with tinyurl.com/ and then the last 4 or 5 characters are generated by the service. You can try to specify what comes after tinyurl.com/. For instance I was able to make a custom alias of tinyurl.com/googledefine. Like the one that was automatically generated, this URL redirects to the long URL of the blog post. My custom alias URL is a little longer, but I was able to give it words that make sense instead of random characters.
Want to see TinyURL in action? Check out my infomercial:
You can download a higher quality version of this video from azk12.org's Media Showcase.
Other similar URL shrinking services include is.gd, snipurl.com, moourl, shorturl.com, and bit.ly. Alternative services may be necessary if TinyURL is blocked in your school district. I do prefer TinyURL since it has been around a long time and is the most popular (if your URL shortening service disappears, your shrunken URLs won't work anymore).
