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With increase of micro-blogging sites like Twitter, where you only have 140 characters to write down your message, and what if you have a long & ugly URL that taking 100+ characters out of 140! There is a need for URL shortening services, with the increase in micro-blogging sites, there are also a ton of URL shortening services available to choose from.

If you want to cut an infinite URL down to size, head on to one of the following URL shortening services, and let us know, which tiny URL service are you using via commenting on this post, also if you know one that’s not included here, please share it with the rest of us in the comments section.

bit.ly

bloat.me

dwarfURL

fon.gs

icanhaz

is.gd

knol.me

linkbee

nsfw.in

piurl

Qurlyq

rubyurl

snipr

Tiny.cc

TinyURL

tr.im

TraceURL

Tweetburner

twurl.cc

urlenco.de

xr

John Chow so called Dot Com Mogul is holding a new contest and the winner will receive $6000 CASH! The $5,000 would go to the charity of your choice and $1,000 will go to you to spend however you want. The conditions for entering in the contest are:

1. Sign up for an account at XR.com
2. Write a blog post about the contest, post should link back to the contest post, include the name of the charity you’re playing for, what you’ll do with the $1,000
3. Write a review of XR.com, you must link to XR.com using the keyword Tiny URL

If I win, I would give the $5K to Bihar Flood Relief Fund by JIH, and the $1,000 will be use to bought a laptop for myself and a Smart Phone (iPhone or BlackBerry Strom) as a Christmas gift for me.

The contest is being sponsored by XR.com. XR.com is a tiny URL service that will shorten your long URLs into very small text (3-50 characters), for use with status updates in social networks like twitter, plurk, identi.ca or yammer or using in your blog, email or websites.

Why we need to shorten the URL anyways? The reasons

1. First Obvious reason is in micro blogging sites: There is a limit on the characters to use, sites like Twitter and Plurk only allow 140 characters per message, so long URLs will never be included in the messages.
2. For better user experience/readability: xr.com/w3p this URL is always better than this long, ugly and scary URL http://www.w3planting.com/2008/12/design-your-css-xhtml-layout-on-the-fly/ (unsavvy people might think it was a virus and won’t click on it!)
3. From SEO prospective: people are more likely to click on user friendly links, the more they click on the links the more chances of increasing page rank (should you put your links according to SEO tactics)
4. Generating Revenue: people use these sites to costume affiliate links, resulting in increase affiliate profits.

You have a choice to choose best among the tiny URL services, Undeniably, xr.com the most visible URL shortener service, used extensively in social media, and is better than the alternatives, not only because you have the best name (you have the option to enter the 3+ character to display in the URL i.e. xr.com/your3ormorecharactors), but also it’s fast and simple i.e. you can add a bookmarklet to your browser and with the click of that shortcut, it will convert any URL into a tiny url which is copied to your clipboard.

If you wanted your long URL to be shortened, you must consider XR.com. They are a great service. Sign up for an account and check it out yourself!

Internet has opened up amazing opportunity in many lives; it helps you grow your personal brand, create your online business and opens up new relationships and networks through the use of web 2 (blogs, social networking sites, bookmark sharing etc).

Tons of new websites being added daily (15 billion and counting…) everyone wants their website to look good and unique and to make them unique and attractive you need that skills and tools.

There are ton of free, open source and cool material to make your website stand out in the crowd and that too within short period of time and that is achievable only through using tools and resources available online few of them are free!

We will help you to find and use that tools and resources to help you achieve your goal.

We are just started so don’t expect daily updates from us in the short term. At this point I’m expecting to post a few times a week. I’d love to have you as a W3Planting subscriber and to connect with you on Twitter through our @w3planting Twitter Account.