Everyone has used, or at least seen, a shortened URL. In fact, ReadWriteWeb has reported on services such as bit.ly, krunchd, SnipURL and others. The better ones also generate statistics on the URL itself, like how many times it was shared, and from what originating site. But ReadBurner (the RSS leaderboard site, currently awaiting relaunch) has a new offering called BurnURL, which takes this concept another step further by including an information-laden area they call the ShareBar.]]>
We immediately recognized the value in BurnURL after seeing a page shared with it. As you can see in the screenshot below (which you can get to using this link), the ShareBar is split up into five sections: the logo area, a set of sharing icons in case you like the page you are visiting, quick rating buttons, some statistics about the page you are visiting, and a button that lets you close the ShareBar and visit the page directly.
Currently, the ShareBar is the one-stop shop for viewing the statistical results from that particular BurnURL link. We tried creating a few shortened links to see if there was a stat page a la bit.ly that was accessible, but there isn't yet. Also, we found a bug when we clicked on a link within the page with the ShareBar on it. When we tried to subsequently close the ShareBar, it caused some odd behavior. However, owing to the newness of this tool, we are willing to overlook this.
We think that BurnURL shows a lot of promise. It's convenient to see some quick sharing data associated with the shared URL near the top of the page, and it appears that it is already gaining traction on Twitter.
However, we will caution you (just as we did with TinyURL), that any service like this can become a risk if the site doing the redirecting isn't reliable.
]]>