

Show HN: Zigg.be – A link shortener that creates short speakable links - _chendo_
http://zigg.be/
I created this a year or so ago but recently made updates and I thought people might like to know that it exists.<p>I made this to easily send links or text to someone else verbally, like over the phone or over voice chat (which is what I made it for). The goal is to be able to tell the link to someone else without being ambiguous or needing to spell it out, so I grabbed the words off a Grade 5 level dictionary. I understand that the domain itself doesn’t qualify but I’m trying to get a better domain.
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grandpoobah
Now you just have to spell zigg.be to the person over the phone

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pavs
"z" are also pronounced "zed" outside USA. Actually that's how I learned to
pronounce it first.

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onlyup
I thing everyone still says Zig with an American Z

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vanwaril
What about a trade-off between compound-ness and duration? If you want a
10-minute link, you really probably want something that's dead-simple to say
like "zigg.be/fit". If its a 30-day lease, you might be willing to go for
"zigg.be/greencatjumps" This allows shorter URLs to stay in a faster reuse
pool.

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_chendo_
Oooh, I like this idea a lot! Mind if I use it? I'll have a go at next time I
get time to work on it.

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vanwaril
Go for it!

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glazskunrukitis
Why are short links being regenerated when the source link is the same? For
example, when I try to shorten <http://google.com/> the short link comes out
different each time. You would save _a lot_ of words by re-using them.

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captn3m0
Its already saving a ton of links by expiring them.

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pax
I would like an option that resets the counter on each access, so urls are
always valid for a timeframe from the last access.

what about self destructing links - as an option - it goes away upon being
accessed - could be fun for text, although, entirely useless :))

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zcam
Expiration on a url shortener means linkrot, which is the #1 problem with such
services, so seeing this as a feature is a bit strange to say the least.

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_chendo_
Zigg.be links (at least they way they are now) are not meant to be published.
How do you propose I implement this with permanent links?

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zcam
They are links, meant to be shared, maybe published, it depends on your users
behavior, not what you want them to do.

Even if they were only supposed to be private, what if my dad wants to find
that Steve Jobs Bio again 1 month from now.

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_chendo_
I created this a year or so ago but recently made updates and I thought people
might like to know that it exists.

I made this to easily send links or text to someone else verbally, like over
the phone or over voice chat (which is what I made it for). The goal is to be
able to tell the link to someone else without being ambiguous or needing to
spell it out, so I grabbed the words off a Grade 5 level dictionary. I
understand that the domain itself doesn’t qualify but I’m trying to get a
better domain.

I hope others find it useful!

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_puk
You have an API for this?

I imagine this could be of use to "the other link shorteners".

It's a great idea, and with reference to scaling, perhaps short well know
quotes / sentences could work.

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_chendo_
Not just yet, need to do more thinking about how I'd like it to work with
regards to preventing abuse etc.

I'd like to keep the link size down because one of the use cases is for say a
lecturer giving a link to class. Keeping it short lets the lecturer easily
write it on the board, and also faster to type.

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shiftpgdn
Is there a github repo or source available for this?

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conroy
jazzychad made something similar a year or so ago <http://shoutkey.com/>

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roguas
not overally consistent... links are speakble - try to make domain speakable
like short.be, better yet short.com (as everyone knows .com)

how one's supposed to know how many 'g' is there ;]

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cynwoody
Worked fine when I just tried it.

Question is, what happens to those snappy URLs when more than a few (thousand,
million, billion) folks discover it?

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ngokevin
Numbers or compound words?

/bananastand

/potato9

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tripzilch
if you say "potato9" you won't know if it's maybe spelled "potatonine"

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koide
You could increase availability by deduping (typing twice the same target
gives you different shortenings)

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lifeisstillgood
It may be coincidence but are you choosing from a dictionary of real words or
doing some clever Markova chaining? I am guessing the former - if so is there
not an upper limit to total active links ?

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nwh
> some clever Markova chaining

I've attempted this in the past with bizarre results. If you're going to do it
on a public site, make sure there's a blacklist of profanity. People generally
get upset when sent a link containing a racial slur.

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lccarrasco
I remember a story regarding this, where even with a filter they noticed that
some words could still be read like cursing so they decided to go with a
Japanese dictionary... that produced words like fukushita.

(edit) Ha, found the link [http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Automated-
Curse-Generato...](http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Automated-Curse-
Generator.aspx) , how could I forget it was on thedailywtf.

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popey
This was also done some years back as <http://linkpot.net/> so podcasters
could read out URLs on their show more easily.

However by just testing it I think I broke it..

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ghubbard
Is there any way to tell if the link I have is expired, or show what the long
version of the link is before I visit it or am I likely to get goatse'd if I'm
a minute too late clicking the link?

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Praveens
Its a nice feature you got there. Have you thought about creating permanent
links? Are you going to blog on how you made it?

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asiekierka
I do not think permament links on this would be a good idea simply because of
the far smaller number of combinations.

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_chendo_
Indeed, although namespacing permanent links would be doable, it wouldn't make
much sense and other URL shorteners would do the job.

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davelocity
Permanent links for paying accounts perhaps?

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_chendo_
That's one of the ideas :)

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joetech
Great idea. I always hated trying to remember tiny urls seen in print, as
well.

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jimmyyoung
People could find this useful, also I love the subtle amazon referral.

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adcoelho
How's the choice of new words from the dictionary complexity- wise?

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_chendo_
All meant to be pretty simple to type and spell. Let me know if spot any that
should be removed. I know 'eye' should be removed, etc

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businessleads
I laughed for a really long time about the silent second g.

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basicallydan
Fracking. Awesome. Good job.

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knightni
This is awesome, thanks :-)

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onlyup
This is actually smart!

