Conquent:

About Conquent:

Conquent provides Business Services and Project Management. Our Internet division focuses on fitting all the complex pieces of technology, marketing, brand management, and overall usability. Tools such as this one are part of our ongoing exploration of ermerging technologies and how people interact with the web.

Michael Bissell's Professional Blog: conquent.com/bissellator/

Twitter:
@bissell

Other Places:

Live Twitter Monitor

Quickieweb.com

Jokeindex.com

Recent Short URLs:

On 2016-09-19 10:16:29:
"Conquent: - Job Requirem [...]"
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

On 2016-02-17 08:55:55:
"Conquent: - Brand Name C [...]"
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

On 2016-01-19 11:39:37:
"Conquent: - Coding Bootc [...]"
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

On 2015-11-10 10:33:06:
mulixiserfe.com/16y54o3yg [...]
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

On 2015-10-28 11:16:05:
"Conquent: - Career Advan [...]"
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

On 2015-10-23 07:21:14:
offerere.com/16v54gk2yg67 [...]
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

On 2015-08-18 11:07:15:
"Conquent: - Impending La [...]"
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

On 2015-08-17 08:19:39:
mashable.com/2015/08/17/j [...]
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

On 2015-08-17 08:19:05:
"Log In - The New York Tim [...]"
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

On 2015-05-04 21:19:11:
"YOURLS — Your Own U [...]"
as http://t.conquent.com/1000

Conquent's Short URL Generator

Enter your URL:
Custom Alias (optional): (?)

Don't be a tool of viral marketing

There are a lot of brands that have taken over the meaning of the product. We've had Jell-o and Band-Aids instead of gelatin and bandages for years. We now have Google instead of searching (it was Yahoo, but these things change).

Now there are a lot of people trying to grab hold of simple web activities and make their brand synonymous with simple technology. Just as AOL was once email, Wordpress is now blogging, and my favorite snippet of technology that's become a brand is the TinyUrl concept.

Every time I post something on at bissellator.wordpress.com and announce it to the world, I promote Wordpress. Every time I shorten an URL using TinyUrl from something like http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/mac/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212500783&subSection=News to http://tinyurl.com/5aobpk I'm promoting TinyUrl.

Much better for my brand is to use conquent.com/bissellator/ or shorten my URL to http://t.conquent.com/E200.

You may argue that developing such technology locally is expensive and "why reinvent the wheel?" First off, most of this technology isn't that tough to build. We're talking web tools we could have built back in 1997. And we did build them in 1997.

Secondly, you nick the skin of your brand slightly each time you send some of your audience through tinyurl or to wordpress.com. Like the matador and the bull, you slowly lose your own brand integrity and people see more value in the tools you don't own than in the things you're trying to promote.

Install tools on your server when you can. And look at the technology you're "micro-promoting" to see how valuable that tool is, and how easy it would be to have your own version or copy. It may not be for everyone, but if you're serious about building your brand, don't tear it apart with a million tinyurl cuts along the way.

If you're interested in getting your own, privately branded URL shortenter, Contact Us and we'll chat with you about the details.

How to use

To create a short URL, simply enter your URL into the box above and click "Make it Short!". You can take a shortcut, though, by simply going to "http://t.conquent.com/http://your.url.here". (Example: "http://t.conquent.com/http://www.conquent.com") The system will generate a short URL for you and present it to you in the same way.

To look at a URL that has been shortened, just go to "http://t.conquent.com/ABCD", where "ABCD" is the code given to you when the URL is created. (Example: "http://t.conquent.com/8200") If you've ever forgotten the code, just enter the same URL as you did before, and it will remind you.

If you want to let people see where the URL leads before actually pushing them to the page, add "/p/" into the url, right before the URL code. (Example: "http://t.conquent.com/p/8200")