Google Maps
Links to Google Maps are shared all the time. So how come the URLs are so unwieldy? (For example: http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1st+ave+and+1st+st,+nyc&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=52.967233,67.763672&ie=UTF8&z=17&iwloc=addr.) If TinyURL can figure out how to make a URL in just a few characters, can’t the rocket surgeons at Google do it?
Aaron Martin caption wrapper
Aaron Martin’s blog features this interesting caption wrapper.
John Deere
Really nice integration of full motion video at the John Deere site.
EMS
Chris Sternal-Johnson writes, “Our local sports store EMS is doing a sale in which, instead of specific things being on sale, the most expensive item in your cart receives a set 20% discount and the second and third most expensive items receive 15%. Nifty idea.”
Keane Creative
Unorthodox left side nav from Keane Creative.
Aaron Martin
on 01 Jul 08I’m flattered at the inclusion, but to be completely honest the idea originated with a back and forth design session between Travis Isaacs and myself on the Viewzi corporate blog site.
Travis Isaacs Viewzi Blog
I liked it so much I decided to use it on my own site.
Ben
on 01 Jul 08Re: Google Maps… More to the point, why can’t they just hook into TinyURL’s tool (since the work’s already done) in a way similar to their little in-browser widget thing and make a little sub-title that says, “powered by TinyURL” that’s a link. Good catch!
chakrit
on 01 Jul 08love this post
a bunch of truly amazing things
AnkurJ
on 01 Jul 08Why are tiny url’s necessary? Is it because it breaks in some mail apps? GMail handles them just fine.
Ricky Irvine
on 01 Jul 08@AnkurJ: Short urls are simply favorable, not really necessary, compared to the long, weird urls that Google Maps gives us.
simplemedia
on 01 Jul 08but the Maps urls are not just weird and long – they are also very useful. You can manually edit query variables on the fly later – which you wouldn’t be able to do with a tiny url. Cumbersome, maybe, but is very consistent and standard too
Benjamin
on 01 Jul 08Aren’t there rocket scientists at Google?
Brian
on 01 Jul 08I have to agree with simplemedia that having that complexity is generally useful. If people want a TinyURL out of it, TinyURL offers a bookmarklet.
I realize it’s one extra step, but if I have to choose between only getting one or the other, I’d pick the long and unwieldy one, because I can adjust that to my needs later, whereas if all I have is a short version, I have no real control over it.
I also realize I’m a power user. It’d be nice if Google offered a “Get TinyURL version” button or something like that, but I wouldn’t want them to remove the full query version.
Tom Davis
on 01 Jul 08The information in the maps url allows the map to be dynamically generated, rather than have Google’s servers do lookups to the mapping information. BUT this has the side benefit of allowing the people clicking on a link to know what it is they’re looking at (a map). TinyURLs hide the potential evil_doers.com url, which is why many people choose never to follow tinyURL links.
If all you want to do is hide the uglyness, you can always use an html-style link, which keeps the control where it belongs, with the user rather than with Google.
teki
on 01 Jul 08“Our local sports store EMS is doing a sale in which, instead of specific things being on sale, the most expensive item in your cart receives a set 20% discount and the second and third most expensive items receive 15%. Nifty idea.”
No, it’s not. You need to buy everything one-by-one to get the 20% discount.
Jeppe
on 01 Jul 08So how come the URLs are so unwieldy? A Danish guy did this with Google Maps. The Opera is located at Ekvipagemestervej 10, 1438 København K, and so the URL is: http://findvej.dk/Ekvipagemestervej10,1438. You can specify the map type, zoon and add text in the URL too.
Chris
on 01 Jul 08I use TinyURL bookmarklet and whenever I get the Google Maps location, I click the bookmarklet I get the TinyURL to send it to others. Here is the link for it. They also have a Firefox Extension but is not compatible with current Firefox 3, it also does the same thing. http://tinyurl.com/#toolbar
Michael C. Harris
on 02 Jul 08My laptop screen must have been just at the wrong angle for the Keane Creative navigation; it was just a big blank space until I adjust the angle.
mdeering
on 02 Jul 08John Deer is pretty good. Got me as a computer geek to look into the features of a tractor! But then I spotted this today and I think it wins… http://www.joshgrisetti.com/
Peter
on 02 Jul 08i think the TinyURL and SnipURL things could be a disaster in the not-too-distant future.
until we figure out the long-term ramifications, i say ‘not necessary’.
the reason Google hasn’t done it yet is because it is, generally speaking, a very bad idea.
Danno
on 02 Jul 08The bulk of that GMaps query is very useful and actually pretty meaningful, but they could do a little work on cleaning up some of the parameters.
Josh A.
on 02 Jul 08The lack of a querystring in an a TinyURL-like URI shouldn’t be a problem at all; as HTTP redirects, they do just that, meaning that you just visit that TinyURL and the full URI appears – then you can edit it.
@Tom If Google did their own TinyURL implementation (a 5 minute job), it would return a URI on the Google Maps domain – i.e. http://maps.google.com/2unsh – so everyone would know it was a safe link.
@Peter What’s so bad about it?
Robin Hood
on 02 Jul 08Masking the real url with a shortened version is nice to avoid a link wrapping in an email or blog. However, I’m not comfortable clicking a link that is masking the real url unless I trust the source.
http://tinyurl.com/5ggkoh
Jake Boxer
on 03 Jul 08I agree that it would be nice if Google provided a shorter version of their URLs, but if they had to sacrifice the flexibility of the long URLs to do it, then they should make sure both options are available (maybe add an extra “Short URL” box).
As an aside, I believe TinyURL stores URLs in a database, and provides a shorter key to them. If Google were to do this, they would need to save a URL in their database every time someone clicked “Link to this page”. I’m sure Google can handle it, but it’s still worth pointing out; TinyURL didn’t “figure out” how to do anything that Google (and pretty much any web developer) doesn’t know how to do, they just built a service that Google (for better or for worse) didn’t deem necessary.
Mo
on 03 Jul 08Hi folks, according to the deere website, I want to post another link to. On http://www.converse.de you have a perfectly integrated video with a guy, that guides you through the catalogue. Have a look.
Kesey
on 03 Jul 08@mdeering
No, it doesn’t win. Anything that maxes my browser window is garbage.
bw
on 04 Jul 08I love the wrapping captions, nice twist on the standard overlay. I thought it would be good if it automatically fetched the captions from the title attribute to cut down on the excess html needed and score some accessibility points, and being a jquery fan i made a little plugin base on the concept. Thought i would post it here in case anyone is interested…
jQuery Wrap Captions
Original idea has been credited obviously as much of the css has remained the same.
This discussion is closed.