[Sigia-l] Alternatives to long string URLs for e-mail linking

[Stephen Holmes]

Hi all,

You know it is Thanksgiving in the USA when all of the mailing lists get 
so short! (Here in Oz it is Christmas / New Year)

So I hope there are enough of you back on-board to possibly answer this 
question.

PROBLEM SYNOPSIS

One problem I'm having was recently mentioned in a TidBITS article about 
  a product report where they complained about very long URL strings 
generated by CMS databases. It makes adding a URL link in an e-mail a 
problem.

Long strings mean that the traditional 70 or 80 character e-mail width 
was not big enough to hold a URL, so only the first line would be 
converted to an active link by a user's e-mail client. I use N7, for 
instance which handles an e-mail according to the settings of the client 
that sent the message - some wrap, some don't.

Often users didn't know that they could manually copy and paste a URL 
from an e-mail and so when they click on that first line link they get 
an error message or - if the webmaster is on the ball - a redirect to a 
help page.

EFFECT

Now e-mail newsletters like TidBITS and this sigia-l list even have the 
problem when referring on links for others to check out and this in a 
very effective form of viral marketing (sosumi!), but it also pisses 
people off if the link is long and broken and the user hasn't figured 
out how to copy and paste a long URL string; they like to point and 
click only. (It happens, I do some work in Mac support as well and you'd 
be surprised at how many people are even confused by a Mac!)

QUESTION

OK. That's the problem. Are there any solutions or workarounds that 
anyone knows of? I have listed some possibles, with the drawbacks of 
each in (brackets).

A database item and directory numbering construction method? (short 
number codes and look-up tables don't give much intuitive feedback to a 
reader for back navigation)

An added ghost page with a short URL made just for a campaign that 
re-directs to a longer string? (This kind of defeats the purpose in some 
cases and is of no use for true viral marketing rather than seeded push 
marketing.)

Any others?
-- 

     _________________________________________________________
    *                                                         *
   *  Stephen Holmes               sholmes at topladder.com.au    *
  *   Information Architect        http://www.topladder.com.au  *
*                                                               *
  *   Top O' The Ladder Design     Kew, Victoria,               *
   *  "new times, new solutions"   Australia 3122              *
    *_________________________________________________________*