LongURL Integration For Your Website
I wasn’t sure it could be done, but I’ve done it. I’m happy to say that I’ve made it even easier to use the LongURL web service, specifically on your own site. Today I wrote a jQuery plugin that allows you to add LongURL support to a website in like, I don’t know, 30 seconds?! It really depends on how fast you are, but the point is that it’s really easy.
I noticed that Twitter search lets you expand URLs from some of the most popular shortening services (though, if they used LongURL they could support a whole lot more 
). I liked their UI approach; it’s clear, simple, and effective. So I pretty much mimicked their UI for my plugin.
LongURL—Restoring Order to the Universe
It’s been two weeks since I conceptualized LongURL, and a productive two weeks at that! Last Monday I officially launched the service (which provides a handy REST API) with support for a dozen or so shortening services like TinyURL.com. Once I stepped away from the problem for a little while I realized there was a better way to go about solving it. Thankfully the way I designed the service didn’t make it very difficult to swap out that bit of business logic, so this week I rolled-out an update that adds support for all shortening services.
After getting feedback from some helpful beta testers (thanks Marjolein and Børge!) and making a few tweaks I was happy yesterday to release the LongURL Mobile Expander Greasemokey script and Firefox extension which use the LongURL API to expand shortened URLs on any web page. I haven’t had much feedback from others yet, but for me personally, the extension tremendously improves my user experience. Sorry guys, no more rickrolling me!
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About
Sean Murphy is a freelance web application developer currently living near Orlando, FL. Aside from building his own applications and contributing to open source projects, he works with clients to provide top-notch consulting & development expertise.
