There are few ways to make URL shortening any shorter, given the 90+ URL shortening sites available, unless you get tricky. Tinyarro.ws uses two tricks to further shorten URLs, and greatly expand the theoretical limit to short URLs: international domain names and unicode character encoding. [via mefi projects] [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Jun 15, 2009 - 43 comments

Rickroll everybody! Rickroll everything! rickroll.it!
posted by ardgedee on Apr 4, 2008 - 27 comments

The Anonymous Message Server - leave a message, get a message. (or a URL, if you want.)
posted by divabat on Jan 22, 2007 - 28 comments

"If only" is the frustrated utopian refrain of Oliver Ressler and David Thorne's absurdly dysfunctional URL addresses collectively titled "Boom!".
posted by anotherpanacea on May 18, 2006 - 11 comments

Abusing Amazon images. And you thought URL manipulation was a lost art.
posted by DrJohnEvans on May 26, 2005 - 27 comments

The memespread project. How does a meme spread? What part does MetaFilter play in the process? [via waxy.org]
posted by cbrody on Apr 8, 2004 - 13 comments

Power Genitalia? If only we could harness that power...
posted by kirkaracha on Jun 17, 2003 - 28 comments

Am I the only one finding this URL odd, considering the content: But for those of you interested in more devilish Jakob fun, check out use.it.or.lose.it
posted by TNLNYC on Nov 18, 2002 - 16 comments

Q209354 - HOWTO Semi-comic relief. Found on newsgroup.
posted by bjgeiger on Jan 27, 2002 - 6 comments

We want 'em shorter. Frustrated with links that are too long to 'cut 'n' paste 'n' click'? Makeashorterlink.com makes 'em shorter. Nifty! [ via, and because of the Gorjuss mailing list ]
posted by prolific on Jul 10, 2001 - 35 comments

Now they're putting URLs on our license plates. This Internet thing has finally gone too far. (Though the thought of Dale Earnhardt license plates is itself disturbing.)
posted by aaron on Apr 3, 2001 - 42 comments

Al Gore Hijacks Ryder Truck full of Ballots heh heh heh.
posted by sugarfish on Dec 13, 2000 - 14 comments

Proprietary URLs? How many of these non-standard prefixes does your system support?

Just off the top of my head with the programs I have running right now, I can handle nap: aim: hotline: and a few others, not counting all the ones built into my browser.

More inside...
posted by anildash on Sep 15, 2000 - 2 comments

Here's a list of all the cool, short URLs still left to be registered. Get 'em while you can!
posted by mathowie on Jan 4, 2000 - 3 comments

Here's a gross mis-use of the web: 800-357-7766.com. This mail order company is spamming the airwaves with commercials for their goofy 'tap lights,' and at the end of each commerical, they advertise their website with this unwieldy address. For less than $50, the company could have bought 'taplights.com' and directed customers there, but instead they force people to write down an address that goes against all the reasons why we have the domain registry in the first place. Why don't they just give our their IP address instead? It's about as useful as their phone number domain name.
posted by mathowie on Dec 25, 1999 - 0 comments