Server Down: The Perils Of Bit.ly

Reader JF writes:

This is the cover of an audiobook called “Server Down”, but I think it could be put to better use illustrating the dangers of using anything but urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com when sharing links with a senior citizen:


“Hey, Grandma, did you ever get the recipe for razzleberry pie I tweeted at you?”
“No, dear, no I didn’t. I guess… the server was down…”


Of course, the server wasn’t down, but she interpreted the bizarre jumble of letters and numbers and dots and whatnot provided by a conventional shortening service as an error, because it was incoherent.

Exactly. You can’t tell me this doesn’t look like the result of an exploded server:

http://bit.ly/irMFm

“Say what? A bunch of wet, greasy squirrels are nesting inside the computer server and now it’s spitting out random-looking sequences of characters?”

On the other hand, check this out:

http://urlshorteningservicefortwitter.com/x0qzh

“Ah, an internet link! I simply must click on it!”

Game. Set. Match.

Let’s get short!