TinyURL

TinyURL is a web service providing short aliases for redirecting long URLs.

[TinyURL](http://tinyurl.com/) was created as a free service to make posting long URLs easier. TinyURL is a URL shortening service, a web service that provides short aliases for redirection of long URLs. Kevin Gilbertson, a web developer, launched the service in January 2002 so that he would be able to link directly to newsgroup postings that frequently had long and cumbersome addresses. [Twitter](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/twitter) used TinyURL as its default URL shortener until early May of 2009.