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New York (Reuters Health) - Women with lung cancer who ate the most soy before their diagnosis might live a little longer than those who ate the least, according to a new study.
Of 444 Chinese women with lung cancer, researchers found those who consumed the most soy milk, tofu and similar products were 7 to 8 percent less likely to die over a 13-year period, compared to women who ate an average amount of soy.
"To our knowledge this is the first study to suggest this association. Although this finding is promising, it would be premature to make any recommendation based on the findings of a single study," said Dr. Gong Yang, the study's lead author from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.
Another study from Yang's group published last year found women who ate the most soy were less likely to develop lung cancer in the first place.
"Based on that study, we hypothesized people with a history of eating a lot of soy food - if they're diagnosed with lung cancer, their lung cancer would be less aggressive," he said.
Laboratory and animal research has also suggested phytoestrogens - plant-based estrogens similar to those produced by women's ovaries, which are present in soy - can prevent tumor cells from spreading.
According to the researchers, only 15 percent of U.S. women who develop lung cancer are still alive five years after their diagnosis. So any improvement in survival could be meaningful.
For the new study, the researchers used information from the Shanghai Women's Health Study, which began in 1997 and surveys 75,000 women every two to three years.
Between 1997 and 2010, 444 women in the study developed lung cancer, and 318 of them died. They were - on average - 66 years old at diagnosis, and 92 percent of them had never smoked.
Before the women were diagnosed, they had eaten an average of 16 grams of soy from food each day, according to diet questionnaires.
The researchers found women who consumed more than that - 21 to 31 g of soy per day - were about seven to 8 percent less likely to die during the study, compared to women who ate 16 g daily.
On the other hand, women who only ate about 6 g of soy per day were over 40 percent more likely to die during that time.
"This longitudinal follow-up study provides the first evidence that soy food consumption before cancer diagnosis may favorably affect clinical outcomes of lung cancer in women," the researchers wrote in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on Monday.
But Matthew Schabath, a lung cancer researcher who was not involved with the new study, stressed that it can't prove eating soy prevents people with lung cancer from dying.
For example, Schabath, from the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, told Reuters Health women who eat a lot of soy may be in better health to begin with, and would be expected to live longer than women in poorer health.
Researchers also said more studies on soy and lung cancer are needed to confirm the findings.
"We need to take it with a grain of salt until this data is validated in clinic trials," Schabath said.
SOURCE: bit.ly/YRxkFf Journal of Clinical Oncology, online March 25, 2013.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


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A doll's cradle, tucked away, unseen for a generation, has found its way into my home, a piece of my mother's collection. In photographing this wicker treasure, I discovered a clue as to its origins. Affixed to the bottom of the toy was a piece of masking tape with the words "made by Robert Minor for Marilyn, 193?", written in my mother's handwriting.
Marilyn's granddaddy Minor (1869-1943) was a substantial man, stocky, square. Looking at his picture, it is not hard to imagine that Robert Minor milked cows from an early age, or that he was groomed to take over the family cattle trading business as soon as he could count. But his sturdy physique and natty attire belied an emotional vulnerability. Intractable headaches and melancholy shaped Robert's ability to work, to parent, to care and be cared for. And once the family sold the mineral rights for the coal on that Pennsylvania farm in 1906, Robert had the means to do more than suffer in silence.
Treatment for nervous conditions in the early 20th century was limited, with most, like Robert, seeking the rest cure at various resort-like sanitariums. Fresh air, clear spring water, no stressors, and occupational therapy were thought to be just the ticket to relief. Relief did not guarantee return to a normal, productive life.
The stories told at family reunions, and recently uncovered postcards and letters, reveal that Robert never quite shook the demon depression. He was subject to violent outbursts throughout his life. His wife, May Laura, had even advised their adolescent son, Donald, to never be alone with Robert out in the barn. Robert also had a habit of kicking his shin black and blue whenever he became upset.
Robert Minor must have retreated to sanitariums many, many times. Somehow the farm remained functional, and a legacy for Donald, his wife, Kerma, and his children, including Marilyn. And in spite of frequent absences, Robert appears to have been a doting grandfather, buying dresses and toys when at home, and writing letters when away, like this note to ten year old Marilyn from Mercer Sanitarium, Mercer, Pennsylvania, when once again he was a resident of that therapeutic institution.
"Dear Marylin(sic) you little sweet thing, I only wish I could write you a nice letter one you would be proud of but Grandady (sic) isn't able to do it. Of course I could ask you about the school and your little friends and about your brothers and sisters and who your teacher is and where you go to school Willow Tree or Garards Fort, and how many there were in the school and do you mind the cold, and did you or any of them take the Hooping (sic) cough."
At Mercer Sanitarium, Robert would have been under the care of Dr. W.W. Richardson, M.D. Many nurses would have been called up to serve in various war-time positions. I suppose, though short staffed, the basis of that 1942 care would have remained much the same as before the war: good food, raised on the premises; daily chores around the home and farm; and instruction in weaving, brass work, lace weaving, or basketry. Basketry.
When I look at this doll's cradle, I see more than eight inches of woven wicker. I see a troubled mind holding in his heart what he couldn't hold in his arms. My dear little Marilyn…..

subset: commoncrawl


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After eight years of work with five other government agencies, the San Jose City Council on Tuesday voted 10-1 to adopt a Habitat Conservation Plan that attempts to balance conservation and construction in Santa Clara County over the next five decades.
Only City Councilman Pete Constant was opposed, saying he thought all of the cities in the county should have been able to participate in the plan.
More than a dozen speakers representing a wide-range of often conflicting interests — from environmentalists to developers — spoke in favor of the plan, as amended by Mayor Chuck Reed, with almost all of them agreeing the city should waste no time in implementing it as soon as possible.
San Jose was the last of six governmental agencies in the county to take up the plan, which will affect 506,000 acres, almost 60 percent of the county, and raise $665 million, mostly from developer fees, government agencies, state and federal grants and private donations.
The plan seeks to prevent 18 threatened local plant and animal species from going extinct, including the Bay checkerspot butterfly, California tiger salamander, California red-legged frog and Western burrowing owl.
Supporters say it will help ensure that money developers already must provide to offset the damage they do to endangered species will be spent in a more efficient way, with less federal involvement rather than on a project-by-project basis with a lot more red tape. Local agencies and cities would collect the fees to buy and restore nearby lands to help boost endangered species populations.
While the five other entities approved the plan in the fall, San Jose's decision was halted by Reed who was concerned that development in San Jose would be hurt if the city agreed to the proposal when other cities nearby wouldn't be held to its stricter standards. But his concerns were ultimately addressed by federal and state officials, satisfying Reed, most of the council members, as well as other key stakeholders.
In addition to San Jose, Morgan Hill, Gilroy, Santa Clara County, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Valley Transportation Authority worked on the project. All five will need to review San Jose's amendments.
— Tracy Seipel, Mercury News


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Derek Muller, the curator of science video blog Veritasium, has a pretty large following across a number of social media channels: 21,000 followers on Twitter, more than 1 million on Youtube, and 118,000 fans on Facebook.
But unlike Twitter and YouTube — where his content is not filtered — his Facebook fans who have "liked" his page only ever see a fraction of what he posts.
"The problem with Facebook is that it's keeping things from you," says Muller in a new video on YouTube. "You don't see most of what's posted by your friends or the pages you follow."
Muller is among many page owners who have seen the reach of their pages wane over time. Edge Rank Checker recently analyzed roughly 1,000 different Facebook pages and found another drop in December of the number of people seeing posts, noting that "the news feed continues to be a more challenging place to get your content displayed."
So what's the deal?
With so many posts being shared throughout the day on Facebook, Muller says that "clearly some filtering is required. The problem is Facebook is using its filtering power in order to make money."
Facebook has repeatedly denied any allegations of "throttling" certain posts or "gaming" its news feed against certain pages.
"Where he does have a point is that even in the competition for organic news," said Brandon McCormick, Director of Communications for Facebook, in a telephone interview. "There's just a lot more competition than there used to be."
While McCormick admits that Facebook does "curate the experience," he strongly rejects the argument that Facebook is forcing people to pay for more exposure. Further, he explained that sponsored posts in the Newsfeed don't compete with organic posts. They are their own separate, dedicated advertising slots.
"We give users a lot of control over what they see in their Newsfeed," McCormick said. "You can filter the News Feed and see everything. You can highlight pages you want to see everything from … a lot of users may not realize that, but anyone can do those things."
Muller's argument stems from problems with his own page, Veritasium, of which 118,000 people have become fans.
"The last time I shared a video on there, it only went in the news feeds of about 9,000 people," he claims, a number that is less than 8% of his fan base. "This continues the downward trend in numbers I've been seeing."
In part, Muller's problem is that many of his posts probably aren't interesting enough to deserve a wider audience. Facebook's News Feed algorithm is designed to restrict the reach of posts that get little reaction from friends and followers, but to promote posts that get high levels of engagement. It's been this way for months. Most recently, Facebook tweaked the algorithm to bury pictures of cute cats and to surface useful news items.
Facebook advises page owners to produce more "engaging content" — posts and pictures that get "likes," comments, and "shares." "It doesn't mean every single person who's connected is going to see it, but the more engaging content the more people are going to see it," said McCormick.
With so much content appearing throughout the day, it seems those "likes" and "shares" have a huge impact on whether a post gets seen. "Don't you think it's possible to see a post and like it or find it interesting without finding a need to 'like it' or comment on it?" asks Muller in his video.
"He's not wrong, but in the absence of another signal that you like that or you're interested in that type of content," McCormick said, "it's hard for us to know."
The other option, McCormick says, is that he can pay to get his content in front of more people.
Muller could increase his reach in the form of promoting posts — paying Facebook anywhere from $50 to thousands of dollars — to ensure they get in front of the page's fans. That's much easier for a large brand to do, but far too costly for someone running a small website or nonprofit.
Contrast that with a site like YouTube, where practically anyone with a video camera can make a video, upload it freely to the site, and be paid for it if it gets viewed by many others. On the flip side is Facebook, where people are still creating content, but instead of getting paid for it, they sometimes need to pay to have it viewed.
"On YouTube the roles of creator, advertiser, and viewer are distinct," Muller says. "The creators make the videos that the viewers want to watch, the advertisers make the pre-rolls and the banner ads, and the majority of viewers are not also creators."
But that model is nowhere close to Facebook. Muller explains:
"The creators are treated like advertisers — they have to pay to reach the viewers. And viewers themselves are also creators. So viewers are also advertisers."
Of course, if your YouTube video isn't interesting it meets the same fate as a dull Facebook post: no one sees it, and no one knows it's there. The difference between the two is that on Facebook you can pay to promote material, whereas on YouTube there's not much you can do — short of buying an ad campaign across Google — to promote videos.
"[On Twitter,] you just see what you see as you scroll down," said McCormick. " ... There's a big chunk of things you don't see, that's the reality of how all services work, unless you spend your entire day scrolling down. Every company is going to have a way to organize this information. No user is ever going to be able to see everything."
Since Facebook did once offer a high level of reach for free, people feel aggrieved now that it's been taken away. McCormick compares the changes to search, where in the past you could create a website and easily use search engine optimization to get it seen in the top results.
That changes every time Google or Microsoft makes a change to their search algorithm — forcing people to work harder at producing better content that people want to see, or paying for ads.
Still, Muller is not alone in his criticism. A widely shared October 2012 post from the blog Dangerous Minds called it the "greatest 'bait n' switch' in history."
Ironically, Muller posted his video to his Facebook page and it received much higher levels of engagement than what he normally receives — likely due to the large number of "likes" and "shares." Many commenting agreed with him and offered their own complaints:
"I liked this page months ago but this is the first time I have ever seen it in my news feed," wrote one person.
"I reposted this on my wall.. The irony is that only a small part of my friends list actually sees it.." wrote another.
You can watch Muller's full video below:


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Everybody has a transit plan these days. Even if it ain't worth the paper it's printed on, nothing stops an endless deluge of photo ops. Look at me! Look at the wonderful things I am doing for YOU!
I am not a Mayor nor a Minister, and the likelihood of my getting a series of photo ops beyond selfies (and never mind that page in the Globe) is rather small.
My needs are simple. My demands are few.
I just want a pony.
This will bring inevitable cries that precious resources desperately needed by the horsey sector out there in suburbia are being diverted to downtown.
There will have to be a regional plan where ponies are included as a potential transit mode. Funding will be required. Environmental assessments. Business cases. Demand models.
Consultants will grow rich studying the (re-)integration of four legged motive power into our transit mix while lobbyists, indistinguishable from used car salesmen, who will show us how the byproduct of this new(old) technology can solve all of our energy needs.
Mayoral candidates will saddle up to endorse the scheme, along with their cohorts, a motley band of planners who cannot read maps, professors who grade on any curve as long as it results in an A+, and financiers who claim that equine transport will be self-financing.
There will be an election. There are always elections. Every party will jump on the bandwagon saying that swan boats are outdated. Fie on old technology that doesn't give the voters what they need, nay, what they deserve!
Politicians will discover that well-trained ponies can be "self-guiding" and take riders to and fro without the need for a driver. A provincial agency will be created to harness this stunning new development! Its first hires will be a photographer and a publicist.
The feds might even concoct a Pony Transportation Investment Fund.
But I just want a pony, and I want it NOW.
Alas, it cannot be. It is the process, the claims, the studies and above all the photo ops on which the transport world turns, not on actual delivery. We might even see a new pony barn built, but reining in taxes will prevent any actual ponies from cluttering up the civic plans and budgets.


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URL Shorteners: Which Shortening Service Should You Use?
URL shortening services are experiencing a renaissance in the age of Twitter. When every character counts, these services reduce long URLs to tiny forms. But which is the best to use, when so many are offered and new ones seem to appear each day? Below, issues to consider and a breakdown of popular services, including […]
URL shortening services are experiencing a renaissance in the age of Twitter. When every character counts, these services reduce long URLs to tiny forms. But which is the best to use, when so many are offered and new ones seem to appear each day? Below, issues to consider and a breakdown of popular services, including recommendations and services to avoid (the new DiggBar being one of these).
The URL Shortener Mega Chart
NOTE (March 2011): I'm hoping to update this article in the near future. Much of the basics are still valid. But you should also see Google URL Shortener Opened To The Public; Comparing To Bit.ly & Twitter, which is sort of an interim update.
To make recommendations, I reviewed various services and how they stacked up in a variety of features. All this got dumped into a spreadsheet, below. You can also view it in full-screen here.
Each column represents a feature. Want to know more about that feature and why it is important? Each is explained below the chart. Green indicates that a particular service gets a good grade for that feature. Red indicates that it is lacking. Not all features are of equal importance, however, so don't let the occasional red mark make you think a service is lacking. But in general, the more green, the better.
To busy to read the chart or the explanations? There's a summary of recommended tools at the end of this story. But first, the chart:
301 Redirect
The first column in the chart is for "Redirect." This is because a top issue to me, and many others, is that a URL shortening service does a "301 redirect" to the full URL. That number stands for the code a web server issues to a browser (or search engine) when a URL is requested.
A 301 redirect says that the URL requested (the short URL) has "permanently" moved to the long address. Since it's a permanent redirect, search engines finding links to the short URLs will credit all those links to the long URL (see the SEO: Redirects & Moving Sites section of the Search Engine Land members library for more about redirection).
In contrast, a 302 redirect is a "temporary" one. If that's issued, search engines assume that the short URL is the "real" URL and just temporarily being pointed elsewhere. That means link credit does not get passed on to the long URL.
In short, if you're hoping that links you tweet will generate link credit for your web site, you want a service that issues a 301 redirect. Also keep in mind that while 301s might be issued today, a shortening service could shift to 302 directs at any time (and if they do, I hope scorn gets poured upon them).
Do tweeted links really matter that much? I mean, it's not like search engines are really finding these URLs, right?
Wrong. Consider this search on Google:
That brings back 27 links to a story that I twittered last week. Lots of those links are on Twitter pages themselves, from when other people retweeted my link. But some come from FriendFeed, and still others come from places like BusinessWeek, which embeds links from Twitter for various topics.
The bottom line is that when you tweet a link, you have no idea where or how it will spread — but if it does spread, why not ensure your site gets the right credit for it? So get a 301 redirect!
On the chart, you can see which services do 301 redirects (good — thus colored green) versus 302 redirects (bad — thus colored red). One service (Twurl/Tweetburner) issues a 303 code. I have no idea how search engines treat this, but it's so unusual that I've flagged it as red (Google's Matt Cutts told me he thinks Google may treat 303s as 302s).
Finally, want to test things for yourself? Rex Swain's long-standing HTTP Viewer is an excellent tool. Enter the short URL into the URL box, untick the "Auto-Follow" box and submit. Then look to see what code is reported.
Have people been clicking on your URLs that you tweet? A service like Google Analytics can show you traffic that comes from Twitter, but you might want to drill down further than it allows. A number of URL shortening services provide tracking stats, which in turn range from basic to extensive reporting.
A future article will look at the type of tracking involved. But all things being equal, it makes sense to select a service that provides tracking. Why not have the data if you want it?
To me, tracking is an important feature. That's why services that offer it get a green for good on the chart and those lacking it a red for bad.
Nothing is more annoying than tweeting a link using a URL shortener and then having people tweet back at you that the link isn't working, because the URL shortening service has gone down.
Unfortunately, I don't know of any regular metrics of which service is the most stable, so there's no stability column in the mega chart above. My assumption is that those gaining funding and partnerships are more likely to solve capacity problems than others.
Aside from short-term stability issues, there's also a long-term consideration. What happens if a service shuts down, as happened to Zi.ma? If a service goes down permanently, it takes down all those links that were passing along credit to your site with it. With Zi.ma, fortunately Kl.am was able to keep those links working. But they could have been gone forever.
TinyURL has been around since 2002, so it has some stature in the space. Newer service Bit.ly recently raised $2 million in funding, which suggests it has some people willing to sink money into its future. But neither stature or investment is a guarantee of long-term success.
Twitter Client Support
In lieu of good stability stats, my own preference is to fallback toward depending on services with a lot of use or which are built into Twitter clients. These receive lots of traffic, which should translate into someone deciding they're valuable, even if the exact revenue models are still being worked out.
Twitstat is one service that reports client metrics (hat-tip to Mashable on spotting that resource). The top current top clients:
- Twitter [web]: 28%
- Tweetdeck: 13%
- Twitterfeed: 6%
- Twhirl: 5%
- Tweetie: 5%
So which clients provide support for which URL shorteners? The mega chart summarizes this above. Any service that's a default in one or more clients is colored green for good. Red indicates they have no partnerships (or are losing their TweetDeck one).
Twitter itself is used as a "client" by many people to publish their Tweets. If you give it a URL of 30 characters or longer, Twitter will shorten it using TinyURL. Unfortunately, Twitter doesn't allow for this default choice to be changed. I hope that will happen in the future. Until then, you can always use another service to manually shorten your URLs.
TweetDeck is a nice desktop client (see How To Track Keyword-Based Tweets Within Your Twitter Stream for more about it). Currently, it supports 13 different URL shorteners (oddly including zi.ma, which no longer operates). However, the company recently announced that support for most of these would be removed, with these five continuing or being added.
The mega chart shows those that are going away (flagged as "going"), those that are staying (these just say "TweetDeck") and the one about to be added (flagged "coming.") Bit.ly is the default choice, so it's noted that way.
Twhirl is another desktop client that I personally use, and it's fourth on the popularity list above. The latest version for uses the new DiggBar service by default. This is not recommended for use, as explained further below.
Twitterfeed isn't really a client. It's designed to automatically feed blog posts into a Twitter account. However, you can choose from a variety of URL shorteners rather than go with the default choice of TinyURL. Changing to a service that provides tracking seems a wise choice.
Tweetie is an excellent Twitter client for the iPhone. Unfortunately, it offers no URL shortening support (and since the iPhone absurdly doesn't offer copy-and-paste yet, there would still be issues even if it were offered). However, in comments from my survey below, someone said that Bit.ly is integrated into Tweetie. If it is, I've yet to figure out where and how.
Postscript: Marty Shaw twittered me instructions on how to send links to Tweetie using the iPhone bookmark feature — awesome tip.
URL Size: Domain, Path & Total Characters Used
Another issue for many is just how small you can make a URL. A first step in keeping URL size down is if the domain used by the URL shortening service itself is small. For example, popular service TinyURL has the domain of tinyurl.com, 11 characters. But service is.gd comes in at only 4 characters. TinyURL will always be at a disadvantage over is.gd because there's simply no way for it to reduce its domain name.
Of course, after the domain name comes the remaining part of the URL, the "path" portion or what on a normal web site would be the page name. The path size for services typically ranges from 3 to 6 characters. If you really want to stay small on character counts, go with a service that uses a short 3 character path.
Keep in mind that over time, even services offering short paths won't be able maintain this. That's because there are only so many 3 character combinations that can be used (is.gd has a nice tutorial about this). When those have all been used, a shortening service either has to recycle old combinations or expand the number of characters used.
Recycle URLs?!!! Could that happen? Potentially, yes — a service could reissue a URL that's been used before. They don't seem to do this, however. Unfortunately, only one of the sites I visited explicitly said that recycling was not done — is.gd. While the others almost certainly don't recycle, they should be clear about this.
Overall, if it's essential to save every character, go with a service that currently uses fewer characters for the path. Otherwise, seek out a service that keeps its domain as short as possible. But as I'll get into, a short domain doesn't take away from other issues you may wish to consider.
On the chart, domains that are 15 characters or shorter are shown in green for good; red means they have 16 or more. Characters include the https:// prefix and the trailing / before the path. Note that with Snurl, it produces a longer snurl.com URL from within Twhirl but on the site itself, it uses a shorter sn.im domain. I've gone with the shorter figures for the chart.
Further along the chart, you can also see the current character counts for paths generated at each service — and next to that, total characters for short URLs. If you're after the very smallest URL possible, look at the total characters column. However, I've not given any "good" or "bad" credit for either of these columns because they will change (I went with orange to indicate a neutral opinion). Any service offering short 3 or 4 character paths now will, if it becomes popular, grow to using 5 or 6 character paths.
If you're thinking long-term, especially with tracking in mind, then looking at the total count is the wrong figure, as that will change over time. Instead, the domain character count is more important.
Custom Or Vanity URLs
Typically, URL shorteners make up a random path for your URLs — those /6Q8 or /qu03e3 and other boring sounding names you've seen. Some of them allow you to override this, so that your path can have a "custom" or "vanity" ending. That means you can have a custom name for your URL, such as these that lead to Search Engine Land:
- https://bit.ly/seland
- https://cli.gs/seland
- https://kl.am/seland
- https://sn.im/seland
- https://tr.im/seland
- https://budurl.com/seland
I think it's a nice feature for a service to allow custom naming, so those that provide this are marked green on the chart — those that don't, red. And here's a tip. Once a particular custom name is taken, it's gone. If you want to protect your brand, you might register any vanity URLs you'd really like to have.
Some URL shorteners share the most popular or interesting URLs that are being clicked on through their services. Potentially, this is a benefit to using a particular service. It could bring you added traffic. However, in my survey, few of the sites offering sharing did it in a way (or seemed to have enough traffic) to make this a compelling feature choice. It's a minor benefit, not a huge one, at the moment. That's why regardless if it's offered, all services are colored orange.
A quick recap:
- bit.ly shows popular links on its twitter feed here
- kl.am shows most popular links on its home page
- Plurl shows most recent URLs on its home page
- POPrl shows most popular links on its home page
- Snurl shows "interesting snips" on its Browse Snips tab
- Tweetburner shows most popular URLs in last hour and ones that have gotten the most clicks in the last hour
- Short.ie shows most popular and active users
- Eweri is supposed to show popular URLs and latest ones on its home page, but this hasn't worked for two days running, so I didn't credit it on the chart.
Country Of Origin
Country of origin (IE, where the domain name is registered, not where the service is based) is something to consider, when it comes to URL shortening services. In order for some of these services to get such short domain names, they've registered names in countries off the usual .com beaten track. Armenia, Libya and South Georgia Island are just some of the places used. To date, I don't know of any country that has a particularly bad track record when it comes to domain names. So this is likely a minor worry. I've indicated countries on the chart but marked them all with orange, for neutral.
Handling Parameters
Ever want to retweet a search on Google? Some URL shorteners can't handle parameters in a URL, all that stuff with ? and & symbols. Consider this search for movie times:
Put that into some URL shorteners, and they break — they'll ignore everything from the ? symbol onward and just point people at the Google home page. So when selecting a service, this is another factor to consider.
In my testing, only Short.ie came up as unable to handle parameters.
What We Use
In deciding which URL shorteners to review, I focused on those that were built into the clients. As I've explained, this suggests they'll have some stability.
There are also some metrics on which are most used such as from Tweetmeme (ff.im is listed there, but that's simply FriendFeed's internal shortener and not something that I can see you can manually use. Heavy use is another sign of stability, especially if people are actively turning to a service that doesn't have the natural advantage of being built into a client.
I also ran a short survey this week, asking people on Twitter what they use. I received 233 responses, which might help people when making decisions among the choices summarized at the end of this article.
TinyURL was most used by 31.1% of those answering (people could choose more than one service). After that, bit.ly was at 25.2%, then is.gd at 9.9%, then cli.gs at 8.7% and tr.im at 5.3% — all others were less than 5%.
I also asked a basic question of why people use the services. Responses were:
Half (49%) said it was to save space. Only 16% said they wanted tracking, though 25% said they wanted both. Among reasons for "other" were to preserve branding or that it was easy (as these are built in).
I also let people leave open comments about why they use these services, what they'd like to see from them or any other thoughts. I've grouped them below by common themes:
Comments About Particular Services
- I use bit.ly by choice when I tip to techmeme so i can track. Also really like bit.ly analytics and the fact it tracks twitter/friendfeed mentions/clicks. tinyurl is twitter default – not sure why. twitter should auction url shortners and get some revenue – that will get rid of tinyurl. It is 11 chars long vs bitly's 6. ff.im is the only choice to shorten when posting from FriendFeed to twitter. Wish they offered bit.ly so I could track clicks. Also dont like URLs that frame content and put ads.
- The only problem with bit.ly is that they often use the lower case L and the uppercase I which look very similar.
- I like the toolbar button that posts to twitter automatically in adjix. Don't like the ad part though… need to find a different one that has the good feature without the bad.
- Is.gd has the shortest URLs I've seen, but sometimes name of the linked site gets garbled (which could be misleading to readers) when I use it on PowerTwitter. The redirects always seem to work though.
- Kl.am is great but I wish I had more control over deleting my urls when I don't need them anymore. Seems like it would be an easy thing to add in there.
- I like the custom URL and tracking features for tr.im. Hear good things about bit.ly as well.
- Tinyurl is the only one I remember when I want to shorten a link for twitter.
- Tr.im works for me because it has tracking, twitter integration and a firefox plugin. it also just works, haven't had any issues with it.
Tweetie's bitly integration in the iphone app is great!
- Twitering from tr.im is useful as it's one less copy-and-paste step. I wish it would give the last couple of tweets and then you could easily make a traceable reply.
- While I haven't given this decision much thought, I appreciate TinyArrows' bizarre characters and tiny, tiny urls.
Concerns Over Malicious Links
- You have to trust the person because you can't trust the link.
- I have concerns about malicious links being hidden in shortened links – got bit by a joke link this week. Not a big deal in this case but could it be a prob?
- Frustrating that you have to click through usually to figure out what the link is going to. Can't get a clue from the domain name.
- I know it is unavoidable, but I do not like not being able to tell what website I am about to visit or, in addition, not seeing the link for memory purposes. I know they are needed for twitter because of space issues, but do not like them when space is not an issue. IE when people post them in blogs or general articles etc. In those cases, use the full URL. I remember sites by seeing the URL's and when I cannot see them and all is there is the shortened URL, the link becomes meaningless to me. IE I can never remember where I read or saw something if I have not clicked on a link with the site name in it. Maybe just me, but feel they should only be used for space considerations.
- I love them for saving space, but not knowing where they will redirect me is annoying at times, when I find the time I'll write a firefox extension or greasemonkey script to change the title attribute to contain the real url by decoding or resolving the shortened urls, like @mattcutts was on about earlier today
- It would be great if the page content was somehow reflected in the shortened URL so that people not used to seeing shortened URLs have confidence they are going to a relevant/safe site. No idea how this would work!
- The problem w/ shorteners is the reader doesn't know where the link will go to (e.g. YouTube, Slideshare, company site, etc.).
Concerns Over Death Of Links If Service Dies
- A lot of links could die when these services die.
- I'm just afraid one of them is going to disappear, and break all my old links … but tinyurl is too long to use with Twitter, IMO.
- I'm worried the services will die and leave my shortened URLs as broken orphans. If I'm going to switch from the market leader, I want some kind of long-term commitment.
- I've discovered that I like using my own short url service for important links – like affiliate links on my own sites – ones that I control. If a shortening service goes down, I don't want my important links to be at the mercy of that site, but I do want the ability to track the links and get stats. So, I'm using my own service for those important links. For everything else – just sharing of news and interesting links – I use cli.gs. It rocks.
- They're great. Had no idea there were so many of them. Afraid of the day they will start requiring a fee. Also wonder if a URL you create with it ever expires or if it's a permanent thing.
- What if they (the URL shortening service) go out of business? Jill Whalen brought up the good point of how an out of business service kills all of that archived traffic potential
- Will the Internet fall over if TinyURL implodes?
Wishlists & Feature Requests
- As a bonus, i especially like to capacity to deactivate/delete links.
- I don't know why I don't get google-analytics like tracking capability with bit.ly. Also wish I could use my own custom domain name on top of one of these. Finally I wish they would correlate with search.twitter.com re-tweets (RT) to see if one of my links is going viral.
- I wish there was a url shortener gadget for igoogle that could give you a short url without leaving the page (opening another tab). I prefer bit.ly to tinyurl.
- I'd love for del.icio.us to create a shortcut url for anything I (or anyone else) bookmarks so I could combine social bookmarking and sharing.
- Integration with Google Analytics, pass correct referrers and pass link juice
- I'm looking for good analytics, including city – level location tracking. I would also love for it to be mobile internet compatible (not iphon), so I can check the stats while I'm out. And 301 redirects is a must.
- I'm wondering about integrating them with Google Analytics. Have some ideas, not sure if already being done…
- Integration w/in web browsers.
- There's so many to choose from, with no real differentiation so I use what's handy. I'm waiting for something with better tracking to measure with the URL shortening, and using the Google URL builder (or other tracking code) if I really want to track something.
- They are voodoo. No longevity, fragmentation of brand, cannot trust what is behind a shortened URI.
- We need wordpress plugins!!!!!
- Wish there was a search box tool for firefox so I could just throw the long url in there and get it generated
- Wish Twitter offered the service automatically.
- Would like to have tracking from within twitter or tweetdeck
Some Other Assorted Comments
- "Had an interesting experience the other day where my AV [antivirus program] blocked a bit.ly shortened URL (cant remember what it was linking to but It was a URL linked in a tweet from someone Im following – could have been you!). This was the first time that this has happened, although I dont run my AV all the time (shameful, I know) so not seeing it before might have been a timing thing. If this is a widespread pattern I can see this as a pretty big roadblock for the adoption of twitter by the large population of only semi tech oriented internet users that are likely to become the second wave of twitter-ers. It is highly possible that they will not being willing to whitelist a url-shortening service through their firewalls.
- I use url shortening services for space saving, and tracking. I'm not going to tweet or try to IM urls that are 87597893 characters long. I was using tinyurl always until I tried bit.ly yesterday and realized how sexy its analytics were! I haven't tried the digg bar yet, but I'm curious if they have built in analytics. I think any of these services that continue to innovate and provide functionality besides just a short url will become rather valuable.
- I will start using one with stats as soon as I decide on which service. I'm seeing where short urls with stats are becoming necessary.
- I'll join the list of people saying "should pass link equity". also i like to customize the URLs when posting links to my own content, but rarely do so for any reasons other than readability.
- Maybe I am old school but they seem somewhat unofficial. www.cnn.com/top-news-of-the-day has the banding a short url will never have
- Space savings very important, especially when including more than one URL and/or tags in a tweet. Don't like the ones that frame the resulting page. Haven't used a tracking URL shortner since zi.ma went under. Would like to find another one to use occasionally.
- Tracking analytics is a must for me, as is a 301. I really like the real-time GUI of bit.ly's service.
- "Stats are nice but, Do we really need 50 companies developing what is basically a 301 redirect?"
- Terribly useful in a 140 character world and for tracking, and ultimately think that major services will want to offer URL shortening directly
- The minute I tweet I know the reach of my "ad." Once I see how many clicks I get I can calculate a basic CTR.
- Thought about making my own for personal use…
- Working on making one for my own site to create branding.. why have tinyurl displayed when it could be youfoundjake.com displayed..yeah, i miss some extra characters, but worth it branding wise..
- They've made domain resellers and registrars very happy.
You made it! After reviewing the various features, here's my rundown on recommended services:
bit.ly: It offers all the key features you'd want in a service, with nice stats that show number of clicks over time, what sites are referring traffic to your twitted URL, locations clicks are coming from and Twitter conversations using the URL. It's also the default in three of the four major clients — or three of the major clients, if you exclude Twitter itself.
tr.im: Offers all that bit.ly does other than not being built into Twirl. Tweetdeck support is coming soon. Stats are nice. Bit.ly perhaps offers more drilldown on the referrer front, from my fast review. Remember, a more in-depth review of tracking stats will come in the future.
tr.im is now in the process of discontinuing service, effective immediately.
Statistics can no longer be considered reliable, or reliably available going forward.
However, all tr.im links will continue to redirect, and will do so until at least December 31, 2009.
Your tweets with tr.im URLs in them will not be affected.
We regret that it came to this, but all of our efforts to avoid it failed.
No business we approached wanted to purchase tr.im for even a minor amount.
There is no way for us to monetize URL shortening — users won't pay for it — and we just can't
justify further development since Twitter has all but annointed bit.ly the market winner.
There is simply no point for us to continue operating tr.im, and pay for its upkeep.
We apologize for the disruption and inconvenience this may cause you.
[NOTE: Cli.gs announced in October that it would be closing. See also discussion on Techmeme].
cli.gs: Offers the same as the others above, though it is not built into either of the major clients TweetDeck or Twhirl. You do get TweetFeed support. Stats include showing which search engines have spidered your links. There's a nice "social media mentions" section that show clicks coming off My Yahoo, FriendFeed, Google Blog Search and others.
More Choices
Snipurl / Snurl / Snipr / Sn.im: You kind of want them to pick a name and settle on it (like Sn.im). The service is currently in three clients, but it's to be dropped from TweetDeck. Within Twhirl, it also uses the long Snurl.com domain. If you want sn.im URLs, you have to go outside the client to make them. Stats are simply the number of clicks — it's not in the same class as services above. Finally, ZoneAlarm flagged it as spyware. It's not, but that's something to consider in case your visitors are running that software and trying to click on your links.
budURL: Being dropped from TweetDeck. Stats look extensive, if you want to pay. One of the longest domain names of any service.
Short.ie: Originally I had this down as not recommended, as it issued a 302 redirect. They got in touch with me and said not so! I tested again, and they are issuing 301s. They also provide custom URLs –I missed that. Both have been updated. Finally, they say that Twitterfeed support is coming. That with basic stats make them a nice alternative choice. However, they still can't handle URLs with parameters (I tested that again, and it's still an issue).
kl.am: Not built into any clients and the stats are fairly rudimentary.
POPrl: Semi-basic stats, being dropped from TweetDeck. No custom URLs.
idek.net: Very basic stats only, being dropped from TweetDeck. No custom URLs.
Choices Without Tracking
Don't care about tracking? Then either of these are options to consider:
is.gd: Built into both major software clients.
TinyURL: The default choice for Twitter, built into TweetDeck and Twitterfeed. But the longest domain of any of the popular services. ZoneAlarm also flagged it as spyware — as with Snipurl, this could cause issues for your visitors.
Not Recommended
The services below don't do 301 redirection. That's a recommendation killer, to me:
Avoid These Services
lin.cr: Originally, I had lin.cr on my list, because it was included with TweetDeck. But I was shocked when I tested it — so much so that I won't even link to the service.
Rather than doing a 301 or 302 redirect, lin.cr spits out a 200. That's server code for "OK," or file has been found. In other words, lin.cr is telling browsers (and search engines) that your URL is actually located on their server.
But how does it redirect? It uses a meta refresh tag set to 0, which might be interpreted as either a 301 or 302 redirect, depending on the search engine. That forwards humans to a new page — but by loading up its own page, it also generates a pop-under paid ad using JavaScript. Meanwhile, search engines that can't or don't execute JavaScript get shown a different page, one that appears to have a paid link on it.
DiggBar: Just launched this week by social news site Digg, DiggBar seems at first glace to be a URL shortener. It does shorten URLs. You don't even need to visit Digg to use it. You just enter a URL after the Digg.com domain to shorten it. For example, do this:
And you get this:
Sounds cool, especially because it puts tools for those who are really into Digg at the top of your page, such as the ability to read comments from Digg about your page (if it has been submitted there) or the ability to Digg the page you're on.
The fun stops there. Like lin.cr, it does a 200 code. That means the page is actually on Digg itself — they're making a page with the DiggBar and pulling in your content without permission into a frame. That's not illegal, but it's a tactic that died off years ago. It also means that if you use the Digg short URLs, none of the link credit passes to your page. It's all kept with Digg.
There's no need for you to give Digg all your link credit. If you want to shorten your URLs, use a service that does a 301 redirect.
By the way, if you clicked on the short DiggBar example above, you would have seen the DiggBar load on top of a Search Engine Land page briefly, then disappear. This is because we use a frame busting script that says:
if (top.location!= self.location) {
top.location = self.location.href
(I can't get the full code to display so search for this in the source code of this page, then copy from the opening JavaScript tag to the closing one, if you want to use it)
The code clears any site trying to frame our content. To see how a page looks via the DiggBar when it isn't cleared out, try this link:
That puts the DiggBar on top of Google.
Postscript: See The Growth Of Framebars & Kevin Rose On The DiggBar for more about the DiggBar, framebars growing in usage and busting techniques.
Open Letter To Twitter & Twitter Clients
I think Twitter and those who build Twitter clients have some responsibility in the URL shortener choices they offer. In particular, I think they should review carefully what they build into their clients and also allow users to add their own custom choices, if they so choice. In particular:
Twitter: TinyURL is ironically the longest domain name of all the URL shorteners. Let Twitter users have an account option to use another shortener, if they so choose. It would also be nice if URLs could be twitted without counting against the Twitter character count at all. Then we wouldn't have to worry about all this URL shortener madness.
Twhirl: I'm hugely disappointed that the client I use and love added the non-shortener of Digg within a day of it being released plus made it the default choice. Was there no review of what the DiggBar actually does? And why make it the default over better choices?
TweetDeck: Similar to Twhirl, was there no review of something like lin.cr being made a choice for TweetDeck users, the vast majority of whom would not assume it was generating pop-under ads? It's being dropped in the near future. Let's hope those that remain are regularly checked.
Further Resources
In working on this article, I came across an number of other articles that you might wish to check out:
- URL Shortening: Hashes In Practice – From Coding Horror, it explains how the shortening is done
- URL Redirection – How it works, according to Wikipedia
- 90+ URL Shortening Services – From Mashable in 2008, covers even more services than above
- URL shorteners reviewed – From Malcolm Coles last month, services are charted showing if they provide tracking, custom naming and URL length.
- 11 Best URL Shortening Services – Vote Your Favorite – From last month at the Online Marketing Blog, services are listed in a nice chart summarizing features such as custom URLs, 301 redirection, tracking and other features.
- on url shorteners – From Delicious founder Joshua Schachter, covers a variety of issues with URL shorteners and why they might be bad for the web, with some suggestions for improvements. Also see discussion on Techmeme. Again, if Twitter were to simply not count URLs against a tweet's character count — or provide its own shortener — some of these concerns would go away.
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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