urltea.com was created to fix a deficiency Chris Pirillo saw in tinyurl.com (sorry, I can't find the original twits - can anyone else dig them up?).

As urltea's about page says:

Chris Pirillo twittered his frustration at TinyURLs not being 'pretty' or 'semantic' when he posted them into Twitter, ie, it wasn't obvious what was behind them.

:

http://urltea.com/1?my-blog

http://urltea.com/1?lol_at_the_photo

http://urltea.com/1?supercalifragilisticexpialedocious

:

The great thing about this though was you could add as much description as you cared, but if it got cut short (ie, by Twitter's 140 character limit), the url would still function properly, as long as everything before the question mark was intact.

(:s indicate snippage by me)

So why is it that the only person I ever see using urltea.com is Chris Pirillo - and even *he* doesn't use the one feature distinguishes urltea from tinyurl?


 Spark Plugs vs Pulse Plugs http://urltea.com/qpl    09:31 PM June 10, 2007  from web

Pac Man: A Classic http://urltea.com/qpb 08:31 PM June 10, 2007 from web

Pac Man Fever! http://tinyurl.com/24lave 08:00 PM June 10, 2007 from web

Best Firewall for Internet Security http://urltea.com/qoo 07:01 PM June 10, 2007 from web

Best Windows firewall? Comodo Firewall Pro 2.4.18.184: : http://urltea.com/qoi 05:57 PM June 10, 2007 from web

Mac Pro Subtotal: $6,869.00 - OH, HELL NO! Not without a sponsor or two... no way. I ain't switching. Forget it. 12:26 AM June 10, 2007 from web

The Best Podcasting Client for Windows? http://urltea.com/qjf 06:38 PM June 09, 2007 from web

I Heart Xara3d: http://tinyurl.com/yo8hlb 06:09 PM June 09, 2007 from web

MY SCANNER FINALLY WORKS IN WNIDOWS VISTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 05:12 PM June 09, 2007 from web

The Funniest YouTube vid I've ever seen (NOT mine): http://tinyurl.com/ygon88 04:01 PM June 09, 2007 from web

Oh wait - there's two uses of tinyurl in there. I guess it's not so bad after all.

What's my point? Good question. I don't really have a point: I just think that it's amusing that something created solely to fill one person's perceived lack of a single feature in an existing product - is now primarily used by that person in a way that doesn't use that single feature, and could just as easily be served by the old product.