Thursday’s Three | Cathy C. Hall Writes

Ten years ago, I didn’t know what an URL was. And just about the time I figured them out, I mean really grasped the whole URL concept, the techies came along and decided to shorten them.

Techie types are always up to something, aren’t they? Fortunately, I don’t have to understand the concept of shorteners (because really, how can you explain why “Thursday’s Three: Url Shorteners” becomes jgyhtx?) All I need to understand is that short is better when it comes to tweeting, and all I need to grasp is one of these three shorteners:

1. bit.ly ….”Shorten, share, and track your links”

2. Tiny.cc…”Make a ridiculously long url, tiny”

3. budurl…”Shrink it. Spread it. Watch it Grow.”

Take your pick. Slap one on your blog. Kick up your heels and do a jig with it. And thank a techie today.

So, here’s the thing. It’s a new year, a new day, a new feature here at the Hall of Fame: the Thursday’s Three, where you’ll find three sites to check out on a particular topic. Most likely, the topic will be writing-related. But I’m not making any major promises here.

(If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m only adding this feature so that I can read this stuff myself. Because I have this other thing. I bookmark stuff I want to read, and then never actually, um, read it. On the other hand, I hang out here at the Hall of Fame all the time, making a nuisance of myself. Might as well do something constructive while I’m here.)

Three Links to Bang-up Blogging Stuff:

Problogger’s 13 Tutorials to Help You Grow Your Blog Readership Next Year

Retro Coolness’s Try Using Google Adsense to Help You Monetize Your Blog

Copyblogger’s The Best of Copyblogger 2009

Um, that’s pretty much all there is to Thursday’s Three. I’ve got a feeling it’ll help tremendously if we actually read this stuff.