

Rate My App: VapURL - Nogwater

http://vapurl.com/<p>VapURL is like a URL shortening service, except that the URLs expire, both in time and in number of visits.  Come up with your own creative uses.<p>We'd really like to get some feedback and critique on our little hobby project.
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mahmud
Expiring shortened URLs shouldn't be used to implement "business logic" or
security. The first person might just share the unshortened link with others;
you might even inspire a cottage industry of "expiring URL expander and
archiver" utility, in much the same way BugMeNot exists because of stupid
"free signups".

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shortformblog
I like this idea a lot. I think there are more directions you could take it,
though.

What if, for example, you had a contest, and the winners got one URL and the
losers got another? From a marketing standpoint, I could see lots of people
digging that. Hell, I would use that.

Or what if more security uses were put into place?

To me, the uses for something like this could be endless. Beats just giving up
like tr.im did.

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diN0bot
Neat idea.

I'm not sure that most users will think it's neat, though. It's not like
shortened urls hanging around is a security risk to them. At least, I can't
think of a downside. Scarcity is scary, though, and fear leads to alternate
behavior. What I mean is that a user might think--I don't want this to expire!
What if my friends come back in two weeks and can't click the link I send
them?

I guess creative uses could be releasing a url for a limited number of beta
testers, or a limited offer. In both cases, however, you want website smarts,
too. In the first example, you want the website to also be checking the number
of beta testers who sign up in case the real url gets leaked. In the second,
you still want to have a landing page that moves visitors to the new offer or
something.

I'd love to learn better uses for this. My first reaction was "not another
shortener", but I feel empathetic to your idea now, even if I'm still lagging
on coming up with creative, practical uses.

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zain
clickable: <http://vapurl.com/>

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byoung2
This is a cool idea. There is a feature I've been looking for in a url
shortening service. Vapurl is half way there with the expiration after a
certain amount of time or number of visits, but what I'm looking for is to
change the url after those conditions are met.

Say, for a user-contributed coupon/deal site, I want to give users an
incentive to post, so I'll let them put in a shortened url redirect to their
affiliate links in the post, but after x numbers of clicks or a set amount of
time, I want to switch the redirect to my own affiliate link.

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Nogwater
Thanks for all of the feedback everyone.

@mahmud: I agree that it shouldn't be used for business logic or security.

@quizbiz: I think you're looking for some sort of proxy. Maybe more like Tor.

I was thinking of using it as a private URL that I could send to my a friend.
They'd be able to see what I was sending them, but nobody else could. If
someone intercepted the message, at least my friend would know about it.

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quizbiz
I would use this all the time if it masked the domain name rather than just
forwarding to it. :)

I would charge for more specific and secure uses. Sensitive private data
protected by a good terms of service/privacy policy and no questions asked.

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Giggy
Just to Update. We have added a few new features to the app. You can now
select custom limits for both Visits (1 - 1,000,000) or days (1 - 1,000). More
features on the way as we get time and inspiration. Thanks for the support.

