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Show HN: Zigg.be – A link shortener that creates short speakable links (zigg.be)

75 points by _chendo_ ↗ HN
I created this a year or so ago but recently made updates and I thought people might like to know that it exists.

I made this to easily send links or text to someone else verbally, like over the phone or over voice chat (which is what I made it for). The goal is to be able to tell the link to someone else without being ambiguous or needing to spell it out, so I grabbed the words off a Grade 5 level dictionary. I understand that the domain itself doesn’t qualify but I’m trying to get a better domain.

48 comments

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_chendo_
I created this a year or so ago but recently made updates and I thought people might like to know that it exists.

I made this to easily send links or text to someone else verbally, like over the phone or over voice chat (which is what I made it for). The goal is to be able to tell the link to someone else without being ambiguous or needing to spell it out, so I grabbed the words off a Grade 5 level dictionary. I understand that the domain itself doesn’t qualify but I’m trying to get a better domain.

I hope others find it useful!

_puk
You have an API for this?

I imagine this could be of use to "the other link shorteners".

It's a great idea, and with reference to scaling, perhaps short well know quotes / sentences could work.

_chendo_
Not just yet, need to do more thinking about how I'd like it to work with regards to preventing abuse etc.

I'd like to keep the link size down because one of the use cases is for say a lecturer giving a link to class. Keeping it short lets the lecturer easily write it on the board, and also faster to type.

shiftpgdn
Is there a github repo or source available for this?
jimmyyoung
People could find this useful, also I love the subtle amazon referral.
Praveens
Its a nice feature you got there. Have you thought about creating permanent links? Are you going to blog on how you made it?
asiekierka
I do not think permament links on this would be a good idea simply because of the far smaller number of combinations.
_chendo_
Indeed, although namespacing permanent links would be doable, it wouldn't make much sense and other URL shorteners would do the job.
davelocity
Permanent links for paying accounts perhaps?
cynwoody
Worked fine when I just tried it.

Question is, what happens to those snappy URLs when more than a few (thousand, million, billion) folks discover it?

_chendo_
Before the changes I made recently, the maximum expiry you could have was 12 hours, which some people thought was too short, hence I bumped it up to 7 days.

One way is to decrease the maximum expiry for guests and allow people to sign up to gain access to longer expiries, which keeps the words in use down.

Otherwise, I can add more adjectives to increase the number of possibilities. There's already an adjective layer when the single word is exhausted.

ngokevin
Numbers or compound words?

/bananastand

/potato9

tripzilch
if you say "potato9" you won't know if it's maybe spelled "potatonine"
davelocity
Lots of ways to increase the amount of available permutations. for example, adding colors to the names (bluerose, pinkrose...) then even changing the position (roseblue, rosepink...).

Should be a solvable issue unless he gets really really popular.

grandpoobah
Now you just have to spell zigg.be to the person over the phone
_chendo_
I'm working on that :)
bjeanes
On making zigg.be clearer over the phone?
pavs
"z" are also pronounced "zed" outside USA. Actually that's how I learned to pronounce it first.
onlyup
I thing everyone still says Zig with an American Z
easy_rider
agree.

cigbee with a c? no zzzigg dot be

zig.b

Doesn't work.

No zee ai gee gee dot bee ee

kthnxbai

_chendo_
I've acquired small.cat. There's nothing on there yet since I need to comply with .cat rules but that should be much easier to say.
lifeisstillgood
It may be coincidence but are you choosing from a dictionary of real words or doing some clever Markova chaining? I am guessing the former - if so is there not an upper limit to total active links ?
nwh
> some clever Markova chaining

I've attempted this in the past with bizarre results. If you're going to do it on a public site, make sure there's a blacklist of profanity. People generally get upset when sent a link containing a racial slur.

roguas
not overally consistent... links are speakble - try to make domain speakable like short.be, better yet short.com (as everyone knows .com)

how one's supposed to know how many 'g' is there ;]

adcoelho
How's the choice of new words from the dictionary complexity- wise?
_chendo_
All meant to be pretty simple to type and spell. Let me know if spot any that should be removed. I know 'eye' should be removed, etc
vanwaril
What about a trade-off between compound-ness and duration? If you want a 10-minute link, you really probably want something that's dead-simple to say like "zigg.be/fit". If its a 30-day lease, you might be willing to go for "zigg.be/greencatjumps" This allows shorter URLs to stay in a faster reuse pool.
_chendo_
Oooh, I like this idea a lot! Mind if I use it? I'll have a go at next time I get time to work on it.
knightni
This is awesome, thanks :-)
koide
You could increase availability by deduping (typing twice the same target gives you different shortenings)
ghubbard
Is there any way to tell if the link I have is expired, or show what the long version of the link is before I visit it or am I likely to get goatse'd if I'm a minute too late clicking the link?
pax
I would like an option that resets the counter on each access, so urls are always valid for a timeframe from the last access.

what about self destructing links - as an option - it goes away upon being accessed - could be fun for text, although, entirely useless :))

glazskunrukitis
Why are short links being regenerated when the source link is the same? For example, when I try to shorten http://google.com/ the short link comes out different each time. You would save _a lot_ of words by re-using them.
captn3m0
Its already saving a ton of links by expiring them.
zcam
Expiration on a url shortener means linkrot, which is the #1 problem with such services, so seeing this as a feature is a bit strange to say the least.
_chendo_
Zigg.be links (at least they way they are now) are not meant to be published. How do you propose I implement this with permanent links?
zcam
They are links, meant to be shared, maybe published, it depends on your users behavior, not what you want them to do.

Even if they were only supposed to be private, what if my dad wants to find that Steve Jobs Bio again 1 month from now.

popey
This was also done some years back as http://linkpot.net/ so podcasters could read out URLs on their show more easily.

However by just testing it I think I broke it..

joetech
Great idea. I always hated trying to remember tiny urls seen in print, as well.
onlyup
This is actually smart!
businessleads
I laughed for a really long time about the silent second g.