Comments on Gregable.: Why do we even need URL Shorteners?

Your url should be http://gregable.com/long-urls. ...

2009-05-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

Your url should be http://gregable.com/long-urls. :P (29 chars) Also, what limits CMS's from allowing users to type http://gregable.com/long-urls OR http://gregable.com/2009/05/06/long-urls Both seem like a reasonable url.

As far as url shorteners go, Ugh! They are useful for saving characters, but thats it. Just try to remember that 6 or 7 character hash for any length of time, forget it. Its a horrible UI for people.

I think there is a good middle ground between short urls and descriptive urls that hasn't been tapped yet.

I agree. Flickr's URL structure is pretty nic...

2009-05-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

I agree. Flickr's URL structure is pretty nice too. The only gripe I would have is their insistence on using www. hostname prefixes. It's relatively minor though, and either version works for type-ins.

I disagree with you about dates being all that useful. They aren't completely useless, we just disagree on the degree. Admittedly, there is no perfect answer to the right URL structure - dates are just one tiny example and not a black&white one.

Right on, I generally find shorter URLs to be more...

2009-05-06T18:25:00.000-07:00

Right on, I generally find shorter URLs to be more readable, especially in contrast to some of the URLs generated by CMS systems. For example, even my high school's homepage redirects to something quite scary.

As for limiting directory structure to things that users care about, I agree, but think that on a blog, the 2009/05 bit actually falls into the "useful" category. When I'm searching for an old post on my blog, for instance, I often find it easier to hack the YYYY/MM values in the URL to get around instead of clicking on links. It also lets me identify in a search result if a post is old or not. If I see "2004" in the URL and I'm looking for the latest data on browser market share, I know not to click on that link.

Another good use of directory structure is found on Flickr. Despite its questionable search features, I can generally get what I want by browsing via the address bar:
Want pictures of cats? flickr.com/photos/tags/cat
Just my cats? flickr.com/wysz/tags/cat