UPDATE (Oct 26, 2010) :: I disbanded my original URL shortening service and have created a new one with an even shorter URL! I’m leaving this page up for posterity, but I’ve changed the links where applicable. Also, I wrote about my new URL shortening service, so you may want to head on over there first!

This time, it’s mine!! After I got onto Twitter and Facebook, I starting noticing all these little weird looking links and came to realize they were just pointers to much longer links. URL shortening services have sprung up just about everywhere. The issue of really long links is more of a problem to Twitter users because you only have 140 characters to type your message, but they’re starting to gain traction for just about every use. Use my new URL shortener to shrink you long urls today!

You would want to/need to shorten a url when you don’t have much space to post one or you want to make it easier for someone to remember. Now, there are tons of sites out there that can shorten long links into something tiny, but I didn’t want to trust my links in the hands of some fly-by-night service. Instead, I opened my own service and now I’m offering the service to everyone.

xi.io URL shortener

What is it?

Take this link for example: http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FKindle-Wireless-Reading-Display-Generation%2Fdp%2FB0015T963C%3Fpf_rd%5Fm%3DATVPDKIKX0DER%26pf%5Frd%5Fs%3Dcenter-1%26pf%5Frd%5Fr%3D0Y2V14K8W4X1MTQ9XB9B%26pf%5Frd%5Ft%3D101%26pf%5Frd%5Fp%3D1253201642%26pf%5Frd%5Fi%3D507846&tag=ledfrog-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325. It’s a direct link to Amazon.com’s Kindle page. Now, imagine you’re on Twitter and you want to send that to your followers. It’s not going to happen.

Instead, you drop on by my new site and create a link that looks like this: http://xi.io/8m. Much nicer, wouldn’t you agree? In fact, this URL went from being 358 characters long down to only 15! That’s a difference of 343 characters!! You can use these links for any purpose and the best part is, you can also search for keyword text, so instead of getting a randomly generated number, you can get a text phrase (if available).

How is this site different?

It’s not so much different in features as it is in name. Other services such as goo.gl, bit.ly and u.nu all offer the same services, but as you can see, they all use International domain names.

Personally, I find two things wrong with this. The first reason is that the links are not universally recognized by a lot of Internet users. If fact, I’ve talked to some people that say they never click on links like that at all! This can provide low click-through ratios for your links.

The second reason is that these domain names are controlled by the countries who own the extension. This can, although probably not likely, lead to the domains becoming obsolete or even being taken back by the local government.

What can you do with a shortened URL?

The uses for this service are only limited to your creativity! Here are some ideas:

• Use shorter links for Twitter posts
• Cloak affiliate links
• Mask a long URL for marketing materials
• Use a shorter URL for your site to make it easier to tell your friends how to get there

This service is free and allows you to make an unlimited amount of links. Check it out by going to xi.io now!

I must say that I think this is great. To clarify, I think the business end of it sure looks grim, but what did China expect after forcing Google to censor it’s web search? For those of you that aren’t aware, China censors the country’s Internet access to block all “offending” subjects from entering their citizen’s computers. What the exact definition of “offending” may be is anyone’s guess, but all the standards are sure to apply.

All this is controlled by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and in total, there are over 60 regulations just on the Internet, which not only includes content blocking, but also the monitoring of Internet usage directly into people’s homes. This is all accomplished by enforcing these regulations at the state-owned ISP level. According to Wikipedia, in December of 1997, these regulations were entered into law:

No unit or individual may use the Internet to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit the following kinds of information:

1. Inciting to resist or breaking the Constitution or laws or the implementation of administrative regulations;
2. Inciting to overthrow the government or the socialist system;
3. Inciting division of the country, harming national unification;
4. Inciting hatred or discrimination among nationalities or harming the unity of the nationalities;
5. Making falsehoods or distorting the truth, spreading rumors, destroying the order of society;
6. Promoting feudal superstitions, sexually suggestive material, gambling, violence, murder;
7. Terrorism or inciting others to criminal activity; openly insulting other people or distorting the truth to slander people;
8. Injuring the reputation of state organs;
9. Other activities against the Constitution, laws or administrative regulations.

Of course, nobody really wants to promote that kind of stuff, but the idea of a government controlling this content is disturbing to say the least. Imagine how many doors this can open (or close for that matter). It is said that China has the strictest laws about what kind of content can be seen in its country and because of this, they also have the largest number of journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world!

Google says, “no way”.

Google’s position stems from their will to keep the Internet free of censorship and to provide a freedom of self-expression and free speech environment for the whole world to enjoy. And frankly, they do a damn good job of it. At this time, it’s not completely official, but the plan is to be out of China by April 10th. Currently, Google is operating under the Google.cn domain name with censored search results and if the site does go dark, it may still be possible for Chinese web surfers to access Google through our Google.com domain–that is of course if the PRC doesn’t block all of Google entirely.

This is what the homepage of Google.cn appears like today:

Google.cn homepage on April 11th,

Let’s just hope this whole thing isn’t powerful enough to complete sever ties between our two countries.

::UPDATE:: Google.cn is now forwarding traffic to Google.com.hk (the Hong Kong Google) which was supposed to allow Chinese surfers to view uncensored search results, but it looks like it’s backfiring on them because China is till censoring Internet traffic at higher levels. I have a feeling this virtual war is going to be bad.

I was reading the article about Google™ getting denied on their trademark application for the name Nexus One. To quickly summarize the story, Google™ wanted to trademark the name Nexus Phone because of their new phone to be release, but apparently another company had already registered this name over a year ago.

The USPTO has denied the application and now we all await to see what happens. I don’t think Google™ will have any problems with this, but the whole story got me thinking about trademarks in general and the ensuing battles between stakeholders. More specifically, I started thinking about trademarks becoming genericized and what would happen to if Google™ simply became, google…

Genericizing is when the mainstream public starts using a trademark name as a generic word to describe a product or service. This usually happens by mistake, but it’s root cause stems from a company that has maybe done too great a job at marketing! Or maybe they just left a much larger impression on the public than previously expected.

Trademarks that can become genericized

To better define what I’m talking about, take the following list of brand names and ask yourself this question: Do I refer to every similar product by these names?

• Kleenex® – The proper term for any facial tissue not made by Kleenex® is simply facial tissue.
• Q-Tips® – Off brands are known as cotton swabs.
• Xerox® – You didn’t make a “xerox” of something unless you did it on a Xerox® copy machine.
• Adobe Photoshop® – People always attribute all photo editing as “photoshopping”, but this is incorrect. (Side note: I was reading an interesting page on Adobe’s own website outlining the proper usage of the term and all of their trademarks and it’s very specific.)
• Band-Aid® – What else would you call it? That’s right, a bandage.
• Blow Pop® – Not every sucker is one–just the ones made by Charms® which is now owned by Tootsie®.

I’m pretty sure you get the gist by now. So, what might happen if the brand name Google™ became a generic term for searching? If you really think about it, how many times a week do you tell someone to “google it” when they ask you something you don’t know? How many times a day even?!

I was watching an episode of the recently cancelled show, The Forgotten and in one of the scenes, they are searching Google™, but the logo was replaced with one of similar colors and simply titled ‘Web Search’. The rest of the page was google and it was clearly obvious. Ok fine, they didn’t want to pay for the use of the name, but…

In another scene, someone asks this woman how they got their information and she clearly says, “We googled it…” For anyone who knows anything about the trademarking process, you know that part of your responsibility as a trademark owner is to protect your brand and part of this protection is to ensure that it does not become a genericized term (as Adobe® outlines on their website above).

Trademarks that lost their trade value

To further clarify my point, here’s a list of some terms that were once valued trademarks:

• Aspirin – Bayer® used to own this as one of their trademarks until it was declared generic.
• Cellophane – Originally owned by DuPont®.
• Dry ice – Believe it or not, the Dry Ice Corporation of America once owed this term!
• Escalator – Once owned by the Otis Elevator Company.
• Yo-Yo – Declared generic in 1965.
• Laundromat – Once a proud brand, now a generic term for all coin-op laundry facilities.
• Heroin – Another trademark taken from it’s original owner, Bayer®.

Whether these trademarks lost their “trade” value or not is open for debate, but what is clear is that each term has found it’s way into our very vocabulary. In fact, just looking at the list above, you may not have even known that these were once brand names.

All this talk about trademarks and losing them got me thinking about registering my own company name and logo for the sake of protection, but even then, nothing is guaranteed, right? At any rate, I bought a book on the subject and I must say, it has a wealth of information about all the ins and outs of trademarks and such. One of these days, I’ll actually get around to reading the step-by-step guide!

Ultimately, nobody can predict the future, but I ask again, what would the world be like if Google™ appeared in the dictionary without the capital G?

I’ve been away from the computer for the majority of this weekend and even parts of last week were slow. I apologize for the delays in posts, but due to a hectic work week as well as a funeral I attended, my posts had been delayed.

I want to assure you that I have plenty of topics coming up this week and you can expect updates 1-2 times each day!

I’ll be going over such things as: WordPress plugins, more affiliate offers, blogging tips, more links and much more information!

Thanks for bearing with me…