Media Blog

In what we’re hoping is the beginning of a trend, WordPress.com has announced a new built-in URL-shortening service for all of its hosted blogs. Now, when you create a post on your WordPress.com blog, you’ll see an option to create a short URLs using the new wp.me domain.

Publishers using the self-hosted version of WordPress will be able to use wp.me short links if they are running the official stats plug-in.

The new wp.me short links are coupled directly to the canonical URL and can be found in the headtags of any blog hosted on WordPress.com. That means, unlike outside URL shortening services, as long as WordPress.com is around, your shortened wp.me links will work. And if WordPress.com goes under? Well, it doesn’t matter because the canonical link will go with it.

As for the actual URL shortener, it’s pretty basic with no real stats tracking or other services like those offered by bit.ly and tr.im. WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg does mention in his announcement that if your post’s slug is short enough, it’ll be used for the wp.me URL. Otherwise, a random, unique key is used.

If you’d like to start using wp.me links for your WordPress hosted blog just click the new “Get Shortlink” button. Also note that if you’re logged in to WordPress.com you can get the shortlink for any page, just click the “Blog Info” menu in your admin bar.

Short URLs seem a necessary evil at this particular moment in the web’s history. While we’re not going to lie and say they’re a good idea, if you have to use them we’d suggest looking to your publishing platform rather than an outside service. Hopefully more publishers and publishing tools will follow WordPress.com’s lead and start offering their own URL shortening tools.

See Also:

• Tr.im URL Shortening Service Finds New Open Source Lease on Life
• Tr.im URL Shortening Service Closes its Doors
• Why URL Shortening is a Threat to the Web
• How To Make Your WordPress Blog More Secure

In what we’re hoping is the beginning of a trend, WordPress.com has announced a new built-in URL-shortening service for all of its hosted blogs. Now, when you create a post on your WordPress.com blog, you’ll see an option to create a short URLs using the new wp.me domain.

Publishers using the self-hosted version of WordPress will be able to use wp.me short links if they are running the official stats plug-in.

The new wp.me short links are coupled directly to the canonical URL and can be found in the headtags of any blog hosted on WordPress.com. That means, unlike outside URL shortening services, as long as WordPress.com is around, your shortened wp.me links will work. And if WordPress.com goes under? Well, it doesn’t matter because the canonical link will go with it.

As for the actual URL shortener, it’s pretty basic with no real stats tracking or other services like those offered by bit.ly and tr.im. WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg does mention in his announcement that if your post’s slug is short enough, it’ll be used for the wp.me URL. Otherwise, a random, unique key is used.

If you’d like to start using wp.me links for your WordPress hosted blog just click the new “Get Shortlink” button. Also note that if you’re logged in to WordPress.com you can get the shortlink for any page, just click the “Blog Info” menu in your admin bar.

Short URLs seem a necessary evil at this particular moment in the web’s history. While we’re not going to lie and say they’re a good idea, if you have to use them we’d suggest looking to your publishing platform rather than an outside service. Hopefully more publishers and publishing tools will follow WordPress.com’s lead and start offering their own URL shortening tools.

See Also:

• Tr.im URL Shortening Service Finds New Open Source Lease on Life
• Tr.im URL Shortening Service Closes its Doors
• Why URL Shortening is a Threat to the Web
• How To Make Your WordPress Blog More Secure

Wondering what’s happening in the world of free, open-source video on the web following this summer’s browser codec support meltdown?

The folks at the Free Software Foundation have ascended the dias to give us a broad update on the status of open video in the browser and the likelihood of seeing the widespread proliferation of plugin-free video experiences any time soon.

The Foundation’s report cites recent browser share data showing that a full 24% of the web can view Ogg Theora videos embedded in HTML5 web pages right now. But the real revolution, according to the FSF, doesn’t just involve watching a video on Dailymotion, Archive.org or YouTube without the Flash plug-in. It involves actually publishing those videos yourself, on your own site, without the need for any intermediary content hosts.

There are some “tricky” things you’ll need to do before hosting your own videos, which the FSF outlines:

1. Edit your .htaccess file so your mime types will be set correctly and your videos will display properly.
2. Enable others to link directly to your hosted video file, as they would an image.
3. Set fall-backs for browsers that don’t support Ogg Theora playback using the <video> tag. The FSF recommends a short-term workaround for IE and Safari of using Cortado, a video wrapper written in Java.

The group also provides a set of instructions for enabling your visitors to upload their videos, and how you can re-encode people’s videos using free tools built on the Theora codec.

Photo: Forcery/Flickr

See also:

• Google’s Latest Acquisition Renews Hope for Open Video in HTML5
• W3C Drops Audio and Video Codec Requirements From HTML5
• How Firefox Is Pushing Open Video Onto the Web

Wondering what’s happening in the world of free, open-source video on the web following this summer’s browser codec support meltdown?

The folks at the Free Software Foundation have ascended the dias to give us a broad update on the status of open video in the browser and the likelihood of seeing the widespread proliferation of plugin-free video experiences any time soon.

The Foundation’s report cites recent browser share data showing that a full 24% of the web can view Ogg Theora videos embedded in HTML5 web pages right now. But the real revolution, according to the FSF, doesn’t just involve watching a video on Dailymotion, Archive.org or YouTube without the Flash plug-in. It involves actually publishing those videos yourself, on your own site, without the need for any intermediary content hosts.

There are some “tricky” things you’ll need to do before hosting your own videos, which the FSF outlines:

1. Edit your .htaccess file so your mime types will be set correctly and your videos will display properly.
2. Enable others to link directly to your hosted video file, as they would an image.
3. Set fall-backs for browsers that don’t support Ogg Theora playback using the <video> tag. The FSF recommends a short-term workaround for IE and Safari of using Cortado, a video wrapper written in Java.

The group also provides a set of instructions for enabling your visitors to upload their videos, and how you can re-encode people’s videos using free tools built on the Theora codec.

Photo: Forcery/Flickr

See also:

• Google’s Latest Acquisition Renews Hope for Open Video in HTML5
• W3C Drops Audio and Video Codec Requirements From HTML5
• How Firefox Is Pushing Open Video Onto the Web

People in the SEO business consider Google’s Matt Cutts to be the grand poobah numero uno of search. Like a Jedi master, he is both extremely powerful and filled with knowledge about the universe.

Lucky for us, he’s also very much into sharing that knowledge and power.

No matter how many books, articles and tutorials you’ve read about search engine optimization, you should watch this video. It’s a recording of a talk Cutts gave at this year’s WordCamp — an unconference for WordPress users. It’s funny, super-informative and just over 45 minutes long.

Thanks to Barry Schwartz, who posted this to Search Engine Land earlier today.

People in the SEO business consider Google’s Matt Cutts to be the grand poobah numero uno of search. Like a Jedi master, he is both extremely powerful and filled with knowledge about the universe.

Lucky for us, he’s also very much into sharing that knowledge and power.

No matter how many books, articles and tutorials you’ve read about search engine optimization, you should watch this video. It’s a recording of a talk Cutts gave at this year’s WordCamp — an unconference for WordPress users. It’s funny, super-informative and just over 45 minutes long.

Thanks to Barry Schwartz, who posted this to Search Engine Land earlier today.