I agree that urls (or URIs) aren’t the best way to manage web properties. They are much better then the alternative at the time they were created, which was IP addresses.

The internet, along with many other mediums, evolves over time. I’m sure people will think of URLs as quaint historic oddities in the future.

But it will be a good way off before they aren’t necessary for many, many applications.

@covati on twitter

Re: Chrome vs. Firefox.

Yes, you can search in Firefox URL line But it isn’t stated as an explicit feature as it is in Chrome, and after running a few tests in Vista (I’m one of the 3 suckers who bought Vista) I can say that the execution is much, much better.

But my larger point is this: URL naming has been such a huge focus of the online world and slowly we see that breaking down as Josh so eloquently puts it.

Shout-out: The Josh Atkins Joshlog: http://jatkins94.tumblr.com/

To be honest, I think the URL (or, more precisely, the URI), is too fundamental to the Web to eradicate, or even deprecate. Look at any publication by a medium to large sized business since 1998: memos, headed letters, flyers, handouts, etc. They all have one thing in common: they have a web address.

I’d be the first one to acknowledge that many (perhaps, even, _most_) websites screw up URIs. They don’t bother to use mod_rewrite or virtual folders, or the like, and you end up with poor-usability, inappropriate, unhelpful, and just plain weird URIs, that help no one, least of all the company whose website it is.

That has to stop.
But it _is_ stopping. Inadvertently, yes - even today, far from all webmasters make a concious choice to use usable URIs, but content management systems/blog engines such as Wordpress, Blogger, et al., do it for them.

Hurray for blogs! :-).

Basically, I think that properly structured, high-usability, and perhaps hierarchically structured URIs are such a benefit that they outweigh the disadvantages of having even most websites use poorly structured ones.

So that’s my two cents. Um, actually, judging by the comment length, perhaps it’s two dollars. Oh well.

Actually Chrome is a bit different because you can search in the same box. Thus it isn’t the same as not typing the whole url - you can actually type anything you would enter in the search box.

Thus all of my activity happens through one interface, so even if I don’t know the URL or even how to spell the company’s name it is still easy to find it.

Great meeting you. Thanks for the mention.

1) update where I am now but not what I am doing (e.g., out of town, at a conference, at an offsite meeting etc. but, not I am at a resturant eating…)

2) cature interesting thoughts that we all have from time to time after hearing something or seeing something that you want to later explore more or may use as a topic for your blog.

I like your diea for using twitter to make a quick intro. I also like the suggestion for separating personal vs work twitter. However, I am in the same boat as Chris since my life is consumed by my startup for the most part…:-)

Syed Rayhan
blog: http://blog.syedrayhan.com
company:http://www.code71.com
product: http://www.scrumpad.com

Great post and glad to see your blog back online!

Even though I have little (or no) separation between my work and personal lives, I realized recently that I should probably at least separate them on Twitter. To that end, I created http://twitter.com/thebdgway for business and left http://twitter.com/bucchere for personal. There’s still quite a bit of cross-over because when you run your own business you really have no life.

I agree with much of your advice on tweeting “appropriately” although I’m a little less sensitive to my web stream. I follow pretty much everyone who follows me (except MLMers) so I get about 100 tweets an hour. That doesn’t bother me. However, I’m *extremely* selective about who ends up going via SMS to my iPhone. That’s limited to close friends, bdg-ers and precious few others. Once upon a time I followed Scoble with device updates on and that didn’t last long — don’t get me wrong, I really like Robert and I respect what he does, but he was overwhelming both me and my mobile phone bill!

I would add to your pseudo-rant that people need to make judgment calls about when to use DMs vs. when to make public replies (with “@”). Chances are if you’re replying to something, I don’t care about it, especially since Twitter doesn’t let me know *what* you’re replying to. Consider using a DM instead unless there’s something publicly interesting about your reply.

All-in-all, your post offers some great advice to fellow Twitterers, Kevin — especially the part about making an RSS feed to track your replies that don’t actually show up as replies. I rant about that here, BTW:

http://blog.thebdgway.com/2008/08/are-twitter-replies-fundamentally.html

Chris

I’ve also noticed that people who use TweetDeck or other tools don’t mind a more rapid pace of posting. I’m trying to keep it modest and space out my posts, but sometimes a discussion gets really rolling and you can’t help but make a bunch of tweets.

I wish there was a time-limited “mute” button that you could apply to certain posters. If you want to keep following them, but you don’t want to hear moment to moment details as they wait for a concert or have a fight with another Tweeter, you could just shut them off for a few hours and then automatically unblock them.

Thanks!

Twitter.com/CharlesGnilka

Happy New Year,
Brian