URL Shortener Service Issues Apology also Unveils New URL Rating System

Free URL shortener service OneCent.US founder Bill Purkins feels he should "publically apologize to some Twitter people" for being a "little TOO enthusiastic and perhaps using poor judgement" in having briefly created and maintaining, then deciding to delete a Twitter List named "americansusingforeignurls", an obvious dig at some prominent political figures, American celebrities, businesses and even charities, including some with the word "American"  in their name.

"Of course we intended for it to be funny, and still really think it is," said Mr. Purkins, who is trying to build a niche for the new URL shortening service based on patriotism, noting the site's dot US domain name versus popular foreign domain name competitors like .ly domains, which are Libya, for example.

The list was only online for a couple hours on the 4th of July, but a Tweet by an upstate NY computer programmer apparently referred to it as "obnoxious" and Mr. Purkins thought about it and realized it might have the potential to offend some people who didn't see or appreciate the humor or good nature intended.

"Last thing we wanted to do was embarrass anyone. I still think it's kinda funny though that some people banking on and using the good old USA image in business though would be using a URL shortener service in Libya for example, not that we have anything against Libya, mind you. They have renounced terrorism and we have diplomatic relations with them, and we also love our competitor bit.ly, and so do millions of Americans it seems.  They have a fine service. Our point was really that we were not aware of any prominent dot US sites in the URL shortening business, and we couldn't figure out why, so it was clearly a publicity stunt.

"TinyURL.com was the first URL shortener, and even though it IS US based, its URLs in base 36 arithmetic are up to 6 characters in length and 'TinyURL.com' itself is pretty long too, but people love 'em because they're the first, and while size does matter, a couple of characters off your Tweet really isn't a deal breaker.

"Obviously, the 2 character domain extensions save a character versus the traditional dot coms. And URL shortening is mostly about URL shortening, you realize," he continued.

"So, we thought it was time for a prominent dot US name to enter the playing field. I mean, why do we have to outsource this too? We also struggled hard with the decision to finally donate 90% of our revenue to charity with no other gimmicks, and our revenue is just from text ads linking to advertiser sites. They get to name their own price and we'll see what the market will bear. It's a good marketing twist we think, and maybe has been done before, but that doesn't matter, though we're curious if someone out there knows if any other URL shortener has done it. Obviously, the name your own price concept itself is not new. There ARE sites out there that donate 100% to charity and we think that absolutely rocks, but we made a decision with the 90% and we're going to stick with it. We feel good about it, but also make no pretensions of being great philanthropists either.

"The closest competitor also trying to make a profit we could find is good.ly, again a Libyan domain, but their revenue model is vastly different than ours. Ours is straight advertising, simple and classic. Theirs is too complicated for my taste, but so what? I wish them well.  They generously donate 55% of their revenue from product sales commissions made through the short URL links they create for free and use the remaining 45% to run their business. It's innovative and good spirited and we wish them well, but somebody does have to apparently BUY something for it to help the charity.  Please correct me if I'm wrong about that.

"Our approach is more simple to my taste. The service, like theirs, is free, and then we sell ads for a flat $$ and cents figure per day, from a day to 30 days at a locked in price that the advertiser sets. Right now? Our top paying ad is in the premier spot for a dollar and two cents a day. That's PROBABLY gonna go up, or at least we hope so, heh.

"It's first come first serve, and it's kind of like a game of King of the Hill. The highest paying advertisers appear 'above the fold' if you will in the more prominent places. No pay per click, that's too complicated for us. This is more simple. Obviously the advertisers will be calculating their cost per mille (per thousand) or CPM as it's known to evaluate what they are going to bid as we grow. We're patient and in it for the long haul. If we do it right we're bound to develop a group of loyal users. We have no expectation of cornering the market.

"Our first idea was to just donate 50% to charity but then we figured, nah, that's not so gracious really, and besides out of sheer competitiveness we HAD to outdo the 55% guys. So, we fiddled with 85% because 15% is a reasonable advertising agency fee, but then decided that 10% would be a more palatable figure. Even the majority of even the most highly rated charities in America spend WAY more than 10% of donations on operating costs and more fundraising. But bear in mind, we are NOT a charity, nor a non-profit. We're in business to make money, like a lot of other people, but we feel good about the way we're doing it and feel we are offering a valuable service, especially since we just added the unique (we think) option of letting users of our free service not only get a shortened URL but also add a movie style G, R or X rating to it to make THEIR end users feel more comfortable and also let any adult content sites the opportunity to warn minors and people who don't want to see that sort of thing that their content may be considered RatedX.

"We're not sure, but we can't find anything on the web like it. Yeah, it makes the short URL longer, but it's optional and entirely up to the user. If it takes off we've done something good and we'll likely have copycats and would even welcome that. It makes the web a safer and happier place we think. And if not? It's unobtrusive and optional. No risk. Whether or not the rating is accurate though? That's entirely the responsibility of the person using the free service. We don't want to be in the rating or censorship business. We're not qualified, and not sure who really IS when it comes to stuff like that. Freedom of speech is a reality and we respect it.

"So, Mr. President? Sorry about that. We was just havin' fun. Turns out .MP domains are the Northern Mariana Islands and they are a commonwealth in political union with the United States.

"So," finished Purkins, "we thank that programmer in upstate New York, sorry we can't remember his Twitter ID, I think he might have UNFOLLOWED us. Heh. In reality though? I think we had less than a hundred followers at the time and he might be one of a handful of non-bots to actually see it in it's brief run."

http://onecent.us is a new free URL shortening service trying to gain a greater user base that likes its dot US domain extension and also that they let users of the free service cast votes for their favorite charities to donate 90% of the ad revenue generated by the site to. In addition, users can optionally add movie style ratings to their URLs to give the END users a warm fuzzy and/or warn about adult content.

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