I was going to call attention to the fact that, contrary to TechCrunch's findings, I don't think sites like tinyurl are worth anywhere near their presumed $46 million valuation. How does a site that just crunches down URLs make any kind of money whatsoever? Do they really think that users are going to be so caught up by a few advertisements that they're going to abandon their URL-shortening dreams to click on a "punch the monkey!" link?
Well, the launch of just wrote that article for me. The current estimated worth of URL shortening sites is now $0--or at least, a figure far closer to that end of the spectrum than the gold mine. That's because Digg, ingeniously so, has just created a self-perpetuating network based on popularity. It goes like this:
1) Person submits story to Digg.
2) Viewer clicks on story, thinks it's cool, sends it to his or her friends
3) Instead of sending real site URL, viewer now sends Digg-shortened URL across Facebook, Twitter, or whatever. This invalidates the need for custom URL shortening services save for the super-anal who need to shorten an already shortened link to shorter amounts. Short-shorty-short.