RIP Tr.im

Tr.im, a URL-shortening service used to compress long URLs into as little space as possible, is now sadly being shuttered by parent company Nambu. The company says it couldn’t figure out how to make money with Tr.im, and couldn’t find anyone interested in buying it for “a token amount of money.” Plus, Bit.ly’s stance as the default URL-shortener used by Twitter itself means that Tr.im would fail in the long run no matter what.

Tr.im was a worthy contender, but there are plenty of other perfectly good competitors out there, so its closure wouldn’t be a huge issue for new URLs that need to be shortened by Tr.im users. What’s worrisome is the status of existing Tr.immed URLs. If Nambu shuts down the servers that forward the short URLs to the original long ones, the Tr.immed versions won’t work. The company doesn’t say what its long-term plans are for existing URLs, but it does guarantee that they’ll still work through the end of 2009. The Tr.immed URLs will most likely stop working sometime next year. That sucks.

If Tr.im does go away completely, it’s a wake-up call we all knew would come eventually, if we gave the matter any thought. Shortened URLs live and die at the discretion of the company that shortened them for you, assuming it doesn’t go out of business. And nearly everybody in the URL-shortening game is a very small company without a proven plan for economic sustainability.

All the information contained in millions of tweets with shortened URLs is tremendously valuable–but many of them simply don’t make sense if you can’t click through to the URL that’s been shortened. Sooner or later, Tr.im’s vanishing act is going to remove all the context from vast numbers of tweets, and the folks who suffer won’t be the people who shortened the URLs, but the ones who want to read those tweets.

I hope Twitter intends to start a URL shortener of its own. For one thing, I have more faith in Twitter being around for the long haul than I do in the viability of existing URL-shortening services. Also, if Twitter goes out of business, than all those tweets containing shortened URLs may disappear anyhow…

As for me, I’m now stuck using Bit.ly.

UDPATE: Tr.im has announced that they are back up and running while they search for someone who wants to buy them. But now, I don’t really trust them.

[via Technologizer]

A New Gadget Site is on the Block!

Amid lots of crashes and server overload, the gadget site Gdgt (pronounced gee – dee – gee – tee) launched today. Founded by Peter Rojas (founding editor of both Gizmodo and Engadget) and Ryan Block (former editor in chief of Engadget), Gdgt is a social network of sorts. At Gdgt, you write reviews and discuss your devices, connect with other gadget users, check out useful tips and tricks, read up about the latest gadgets, and most importantly, find your next new device. If you still don’t understand what Gdgt is, check out this introductory video by Veronica Belmont below. Or just visit the site and stumble around.

Twitter: The Must-Know Conventions, Tricks, and More

So you probably recently joined Twitter after your friends pressured told you about how great it is. But now that you’ve joined Twitter and sent your first few tweets, now what?

Basics

Twitter isn’t all about just tweeting or following.

• Find out what people are saying about you! On Twitter’s homepage, select the @yourusername tab. This tab collects all mentions of your username.
• Direct message. Is your friend following you? Are you following them? Great! Direct message allows you to send messages to them. It’s faster, quicker, and more awesome than email.
• Favorites. Mouse over any tweet and click on the star to mark it as your favorite. Access all your favorites by clicking on the favorites tab on Twitter’s homepage.
• Search! Find out what’s going on in the world. Twitter displays 10 trending topics and also lets you enter queries to search the Twitterverse in real-time.

Get a client

Tweetie for Mac

Power users of Twitter never use the web interface. Desktop applications allow you to manage multiple accounts or have added features. Personally, I use the app Tweetie, which is exclusive to the Mac platform, but of course there is a plethora of other choices. Adobe AIR applications like Twhirl or Seesmic Desktop. You can find more apps at Twitter downloads, or even more at the Tweetie fan wiki.

And don’t forget to get a good client for your phone. For iPhone and iPod touch, TweetDeck is a great choice.

The Conventions

Want to sound unintelligible to the newbies who just joined Twitter? Easy! Use some Twitter conventions. We have them all listed right here.

• The @ Symbol: Used to refer to another user on Twitter. For example, you might say: “@SupahAsian and I just argued over something.” When put at the very front of a tweet, it is known as a reply. UPDATE: You should click the arrow next to the tweet to reply to another person. This lets Twitter know which tweet you are replying to, letting you see the full conversation thread if you want to. (Thanks, Kevin!)
• RT: RT stands for retweet. It is used to restate, word-for-word, what another Twitter user said. For example: “RT @Grant_Lin: Wow- I just found out that I like to type things in this box and erase and just type some other random thing in after…repeatedly.”
• OH: OH stands for overheard. Use it when you overhear something that you want to tweet. For example: “OH: I told her let’s watch Dora, but this time, I’ll be the explorer.”
• #: The number sign is known as a hashtag. Use it to refer to a topic. For example: “Apple just announced new MacBook Pros! Cool! #wwdc”
• via: Similar to RT, but used when you edit what another user said. For example: “I think they’re equally illegal. (via @Grant_Lin)

Just a tip: Gracious Twitter users don’t use up all 140 characters when tweeting. This is to leave room for others to RT.

Short URLs

Because the maximum number of characters per tweet is only 140, sharing links can be a pain. Luckily, services like bit.ly or tr.im turn super long URLs into tidy short ones. Both services allow you to quickly post stuff to Twitter once you’ve shortened a link, track statistics, and more. Most desktop clients shorten URLs for you.

Share Pics

How do you share pictures on Twitter? Easy: Twitpic. Twitpic is a service that allows you to quickly take or upload a photo and share it on Twitter. Most desktop clients already integrate support for Twitpic. You could also use it on your phone.

Feed your blog

A great way to advertise your blog is to feed it into your Twitter stream. Use Twitterfeed to make sure that all your blog posts also get put automatically in your Twitter stream.

That’s that for our quick Twitter Must-Know Guide. Feel free to tell us about your own favorite Twitter tricks by emailing us at theworld@daylenyang.com. And be sure to follow @daylenyang (that’s me!) on Twitter!

Preview Fonts with Flipping Typical

Ever wanted to compare your installed fonts through your browser? Flipping Typical is just what you need to do that.

Introducing Twek

So a few days ago Kevin and I decided to launch a new blog called Twek. Similar to this blog, it is dedicated to bringing you the latest in tweknology news. What will become of this blog, then? Well, I will be posting more essay-like posts to Twek, and more creative/visual-like posts to The World.