TinyURL.com

My brother sent me this today. Its called tinyURL.com and it esssentially shrinks a long cut and paste URL into a short 24 letter version that is handy for emails & on mobiles. The key is the link doesnt get broken by different email settings etc.

Why is this interesting?

Each URL a user gets shortened using tinyURL.com is unique i.e If I am looking at a car page and someone else looks at that same car page then it gives the same URL by TinyURL.com when the link is submitted. Therefore this interest can be tracked by them. This interest in a particular car is clearly worth a lot as there is a high chance someone is researching to buy such a car, if they have bothered to shorten the URL to get send it to someone else (maybe the wife?) to review.

Now if your an advertiser selling similar cars then you will want to place your ad right here. It really doesnt get any better in terms of targeting ad's to potential buyers of your product. For interviews and analysis go to David Berlinds blog at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=200 . He thinks its the next YouTube. I'm not so sure but its certainly an interesting tool for contextual advertising.