Tim's Weblog
Tim Strehle’s links and thoughts on Web apps, software development and Digital Asset Management, since 2002.
2013-02-22

Will Norris: No one cares about your URLs (so buy a domain)

Will Norris (who works at Google) – No one cares about your URLs (so buy a domain):

“The only way for you to ensure the integrity and longevity of your content is for you to take ownership of how it is accessed. Do yourself a favor and go buy a domain that you use for publishing your content.”

I don’t understand why even software celebrities like Kent Beck or Steve Yegge publish long-form, important stuff in foreign spaces with (usually) ugly URLs that will one day go away, i.e. Facebook, Google Plus or Wordpress.com.

This has been obvious for years if not decades. (And not only for Web sites, but for e-mail addresses as well.) I bought my own nice domain name in 1998, and it has outlived a large number of services already and will probably last longer than Facebook or Google Plus. Owning a small part of the World Wide Web was part of the Web fascination back in the day, and for me it still is. Let’s empower even less-technical people to break out of corporate information silos!

See also: Marco Arment – Own your identity.