urlTea - a shorter, customizable URL tool

Since its introduction, TinyURL more or less became the de-facto standard tool for shortening URLs to share across the web. You put a long URL in, you get a shortened version back, and everyone's happy - everyone, that is, except Chris Pirillo. As if already being a 'net celeb and go-to guy for all sorts of web culture and computer support, he's also consistently near the top of the Twitterholic list, often tweeting about one link or another.

Always one to voice a complaint when tools aren't quite getting the job done however, Chris tweeted a frustration with the way TinyURL works its magic, and Brett Taylor heard loud and clear. Thus, urlTea was born, a TinyURL-like service that brings some really unique features to the URL-shortening table. First, upon entering a URL at urlTea.com, it of course returns a shortened version but also immediately copies it to the clipboard (even on a Mac; nice). urlTea also offers a bookmarklet for instantly shortening any URL when you're far and away from urlTea's site, as well as an IM bot for the ultimate in keeping friendly tools close at hand. A very unique feature, however, is the ability to add any text to the end of a urlTea url with the inclusion of a question mark. This url for example: http://urltea.com/y3 can also be written as http://urltea.com/y3?coolest-site-evar, which offers a lot of flexibility if you want to add any relevant information for your lucky recipients.

As if this all wasn't enough innovation, the bottom of urlTea's about page lists quite a few features that are still to come. Not bad for a product borne out of a response to someone's twitterings!

Tags: brett taylor, BrettTaylor, chris pirillo, ChrisPirillo, freeware, tinyurl, tool, tools, tweets, twitter, urltea