Plurkular

There are plenty of URL-shortening services out there these days and it seems with each new day another one spawns. TinyURL was one of the first (and probably the largest) and then came the others. Some have even died over time as competitors came out with better products.

Back when I was trying to name this site, I did a lot of brainstorming about Plurk-related names. Plurl was something I had come up with (which I thought would do great as a URL-shortening service because Plurk + URL = Plurl). To my disappointment, the .com domain had already been purchased and I didn’t have the skills to put the applurkation together.

The good thing is there are plenty of Plurkers out there that are far more skilled at coding than I, and Chris Prakoso (mahadewa) is one of those people. You might recognize his name from his work on Plurkerati, the “Technorati of the Plurkosphere”. It appears that Chris was getting a bit bored with only writing code for one website, so he decided to launch a new website that shortens URLs and then posts them to Plurk, called Plurl.

The tool is easy to use and everything is done through the site, located at http://plurl.me, a great alternative to the .com domain.

The process is simple and will have you posting shortened URLs in no time.

1. Paste your long URL into the input box and click Plurl it!
   
2. The site shortens your URL and displays the new Plurl. Now click Plurk it!
   
3. Enter your Plurk username, password and a title for the Plurl. You can also switch to the advanced mode and customize the entire message.
   
4. Click Post and your new Plurl will be Plurked on your behalf.
   

As I mentioned on the app page for this tool, I would love to see a bookmarklet created that would allow the user to create Plurls and Plurk them on the fly, but that’s always something that could be added later.

Chris did a great job with this site. I’ve got to congratulate and thank him for all of his efforts.

Thanks Chris!