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A ML URL shortener / mapped locations
Posted: 12:52 pm, May 9th, 2011 in Midtown Eating
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9 Comments
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I think that's definitely doable - are you referring to something like Zagat's food truck site?
A bunch of trucks right now are participating in this; they tweet Zagat with their location and Zagat updates it on the map.
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Even without a maps API, a shorter URL for this site is a good idea so that people can tweet links to here more easily. All the cool kids are doing it -- Youtube has http://www.youtu.be, New York Times has http://www.nyti.ms, the New Yorker has nyr.kr, Time has ti.me, etc. etc.
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You do realize Twitter shortens URLs on its own, right? And there are more than enough generic services out there. Why should every site implement their own? Seems like the wrong approach.
As for the other thing.. well.. I keep hoping nobody else does it before I get a chance. Zagat's doesn't count, it's far from usable IMO.
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Patience, the map app like this... it's in the works :)
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@ChetP - I was thinking of the Zagat site, but I've been disappointed with it. I was imagining that this site could do a better job, based on the excitement here and the popularity of the Twitter Tracker.
This site has a lot of passionate users, and also pretty good relationships with the truck vendors. Between interaction and direct feedback, and even possible user participation (crowdsourcing), I could see this site succeeding where Zagat really hasn't.
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Haha. Zach is rolling in cash he can spend on development I bet...
Also, Yahoo Answers icons were 8 years ago.
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@Masto, sure, it's not exactly imperative, but I like the idea anyway. It looks cool and it probably doesn't cost much to acquire such a domain. Also, if someone sends me a random generic shortened URL, I usually can't tell where it goes before I click it. (Fortunately tinyurl and is.gd have preview functions, but many others don't, as far as I know.) I've noticed that the good folks at Twitter have implemented a solution to that issue by showing the full *real* URL when you mouse over the shortened ones (usually) so that you know you're not going somewhere spammy and malicious, but via other methods, you don't know where you're going... and, eh, hell, I guess I just like the idea of, say, the New Yorker shortened to http://www.nyr.kr because it looks funny.
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But how will I disguise all my Goatse links?
Seriously, simplicity isn't all it's cracked up to be.
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pshah. I'd develop that for Zach for free, or more precisely for the benefit whose reward we'd share.
I agree with Ike that they look cool, and you don't have to depend on other shorteners that might disappear without warning. (Switzerland is arguably a much safer bet for domain registration than bitly's Libya.)
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I think this site should register a domain in Switzerland to use as a URL shortener.. "mlun" or "mtlun"are both available at the .ch domain.
Really what I'm hoping to see is lunch trucks using those to tweet Google Maps locations on a daily basis, and better yet some kind of automated service that takes advantage of the Maps API and puts them all into a map of midtown.
This would be an incredible service for readers of this site, since at the moment trying to following trucks on twitter involves picking a truck and then being disappointed to learn that it's nowhere near you. However if you could take your current location and see the five closest trucks within a couple block radius, you'd immediately know your lunchtruck options!