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Spotlight: Make websites easier to visit with URL shortening services

Posted on by IT editors

Tired of trying to point your friends to that one picture on Facebook, or that great blog post with the ridiculously long URL (web address)? There’s a solution out there for you. Many websites have started offering URL shortening services. What is URL shortening?

Imagine you want to point someone to an article in InfoTech Tuesday and the article’s URL is itnews.itac.k-state.edu/2009/07/simplify-internet-browsing-by-using-tabs/ . Obviously, that URL is too long and difficult to dictate to someone. What if, instead of that gargantuan URL, you could give them tinyurl.com/muzhwa or bit.ly/3WASwn?

Those are a lot more manageable and won’t take up an entire line in an e-mail, which is the beauty of URL shortening. Continue reading “Spotlight: Make websites easier to visit with URL shortening services” →

Managing Twitter and other social media

Posted on by IT editors

Where last week was an introduction to microblogging, this week is about learning some tools and strategies for managing the plethora of services and ways of communicating in this social media landscape. The immediate problem that occurs for most people who choose to engage in social media is how to choose which communities/services to get involved with and how to most seamlessly integrate them into their daily lives online. Here’s the scenario:

In real life (IRL) Joe knows Bob, Adam, and Sue. Joe’s looking to start venturing more into social media, to see what all the buzz is about. Joe created a Facebook account a while ago, but never uses it. Joe is friends with Bob on Facebook, but Adam and Sue don’t use Facebook. Joe chats with Adam on IM, but Sue and Bob don’t do IM. Joe knows Sue is a huge fan of Twitter, but Bob and Adam don’t like it one bit. Joe really just wants to connect with all of them online and it seems like such a hassle to have three different ways of communicating with them using social media.

In this common scenario, Joe is overwhelmed by it all and gives up before even getting started. While there is a lot to keep track of, it can be simplified a bit.

Continue reading “Managing Twitter and other social media” →