Difference between revisions of "URLTeam"
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m (TinyURL on Wheels! moved to TinyURL: revert) |
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* Hmm, friendfeed released a new "import Twitter" feature today. It is taking a LONG time on my account. I wonder why.... http://ff.im/GM5W about 14 hours ago from FriendFeed | * Hmm, friendfeed released a new "import Twitter" feature today. It is taking a LONG time on my account. I wonder why.... http://ff.im/GM5W about 14 hours ago from FriendFeed | ||
If these TinyURL services go away, there's not much content here. | If these TinyURL services go away, there's not much content here. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_rot Link Rot]. | ||
So, the project, scrape the TinyURL (and similar) services. It's actually not as hard as it sounds, because we don't need to scrape any web pages or parse any html, since the services just send a Location: header when queried for the hash, we just ask the service for the hash and parse the headers for the redirect url: | So, the project, scrape the TinyURL (and similar) services. It's actually not as hard as it sounds, because we don't need to scrape any web pages or parse any html, since the services just send a Location: header when queried for the hash, we just ask the service for the hash and parse the headers for the redirect url: |
Revision as of 22:06, 1 May 2009
Too many people using TinyURL and similar services
Twitter is a great example of what's wrong with trusting an online service with something of value. Check out some 'tweets':
- Hah, I'm a Zombie! http://tinyurl.com/8gnnb7 Ahh, the fun we all have with each other. about 1 hour ago from web
- Health privacy is dead. Here's why: http://ff.im/GMpx about 14 hours ago from FriendFeed
- Hmm, friendfeed released a new "import Twitter" feature today. It is taking a LONG time on my account. I wonder why.... http://ff.im/GM5W about 14 hours ago from FriendFeed
If these TinyURL services go away, there's not much content here. See Link Rot.
So, the project, scrape the TinyURL (and similar) services. It's actually not as hard as it sounds, because we don't need to scrape any web pages or parse any html, since the services just send a Location: header when queried for the hash, we just ask the service for the hash and parse the headers for the redirect url:
(18) swebb@swebb.cluster Wed 11:10am [~] % curl -LLIs http://tinyurl.com/6dvm2t | grep Location Location: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/too_many_people_use_tinyurl.php (19) swebb@swebb.cluster Wed 11:10am [~] % curl -LLIs http://ff.im/GMpx | grep Location Location: http://friendfeed.com/e/08954685-00fe-4e55-b28f-4b99f83bfb0d/Health-privacy-is-dead-Here-s-why/
Walk through all possible hash tags, check for errors, and we're good-to-go.
STATUS (as of mid-April, 2009): * tinyurl.com: 1M urls ripped * ff.im: 1M urls ripped * bit.ly: just started mid-April, 2009
- NOTE: ripping is going slowly so I don't get banned and/or overwhelm the service. ff.im banned me for 24 hours once for ripping too quickly. Also, I'm ripping random URLs, not sequential.
- This looks like it would be a good task for distributed computing. Majestic-12 is a project whose main bottleneck is bandwidth, and they are doing quite well. You'd just need to give people a block of URLs to check, and have them report back the results.
Sites that I've collected that offer similar services:
1link.in 4url.cc 6url.com adjix.com ad.vu bellypath.com bit.ly bkite.com budurl.com canurl.com chod.sk cli.gs decenturl.com dn.vc doiop.com dwarfurl.com easyuri.com easyurl.net ff.im go2cut.com gonext.org hulu.com hypem.com ifood.tv ilix.in is.gd ix.it jdem.cz jijr.com kissa.be kurl.us litturl.com lnkurl.com memurl.com metamark.net miklos.dk minilien.com minurl.org muhlink.com myurl.in myurl.us notlong.com ow.ly plexp.com poprl.com qurlyq.com redirx.com s3nt.com shorterlink.com shortlinks.co.uk short.to shorturl.com shrinklink.co.uk shrinkurl.us shrt.st shurl.net simurl.com shorl.com smarturl.eu snipr.com snipurl.com snurl.com sn.vc starturl.com surl.co.uk tighturl.com timesurl.at tiny123.com tiny.cc tinylink.com tinyurl.com tobtr.com traceurl.com tr.im tweetburner.com twitpwr.com twitthis.com twurl.nl u.mavrev.com ur1.ca url9.com urlborg.com urlbrief.com urlcover.com urlcut.com urlhawk.com url-press.com urlsmash.com urltea.com urlvi.be vimeo.com wlink.us xaddr.com xil.in xrl.us x.se xs.md yatuc.com yep.it yweb.com zi.ma w3t.org