UNU is a URL shortening service, not very popular, but got potential.
The first time I used UNU, I was so impressed for the quality of service they gave me. Plus:
- UNU claims that they are the shortest in the market. Bit.ly and the like use 5 characters after their domain name. With UNU, the domain name itself is short and uses only 4 characters.
- The site was fast loading and suited well for my needs.
- The stats are just what you need. The others would give a lot of reports like the source of traffic and stuffs that we often never care about. Just add a question mark (?) to the end of the UNU shortened link and you will get the number of times the link was redirected. (see: http://u.nu/47×4? )
- The logo looks awesome. (Hey, design always matters)
Something else that I liked was UNU’s API. It was so easy to understand, I am not a great programmer myself, and even I got it.
Short is Cute and Fast too – Get the Bookmarklet
UNU homepage offers a bookmarklet that you can just drag and drop into your browser toolbar and when you need to shorten a URL, just click on it. But it loads on the same page. Also, there is a faster way to get the URL shortened, without using any bandwidth. I made a bookmarklet using the simple API and here it is:
UNU It!
Drag and Drop the above link to your browser toolbar. When you need a link shortened, click it and a new popup window will return you exactly what you need. (Click here for a demo)
That’s it, when you need stats, add a ‘?’ to the end of the url.
Tested on Firefox and Opera, it should work on all browsers with JavaScript enabled. If you get stuck, do let me know. 
29 Comments
Useful service from UNU, I like “?” facility from UNU because if you haven’t any traffic tracking software and want to track traffic from your shorted URL, i think this is a good application, also very fast & less time taken.
Again thanks Arun for your impressive post.
The speed is awesome, combine that with the simple API, that makes UNU my choice of as a shortner
Awesome Man!
UNU is interesting..
Thanks for letting me know!
You are welcome!
Thanks for the first comment, make yourself comfy here
Sure!
Useful bookmarklet. Why dont you try a popup than a ( usually ) slower window.open ?
Good work
Actually it was my first day at JavaScript, didn’t know that there were speed differences. Now that’s a tip for me, thanks a lot
It is looking very cool! But, the speed is not that good here (Netherlands) dunno if its because of location, or just bad time
oh, its slow..? I thought that the bookmarklet would be really fast since it doesn’t load anything other than the shortened URL.Maybe its cuz of the location or time. Its fast here (and I have a slow connection).
I love that place you are at. My dad have a friend in holland, he used to bring us chocolates. Cool people there and I have heard that the mindset is open. Pleased to meet you
Thats great. Thanks for letting all of us know about this great service.
My pleasure, as always
I will catch you on gtalk soon, I was there last two nights, but was buzy over a report. Will meet
What can i say. My internet limit is over for this month and now i am only available on mornings from 6 to 8. feel very sad
Guess you were browsing a lot, it happens bro. Atleast you have the morning, I got just 1 GB and when its done, I am stuck
Yes Arun You said it, UNU is lightening fast, thaanks for the info.
Glad that you found it useful. I was in love with the name and design first, then the speed just blew me away
Another way of doing the samething , but this time using a popup.
Not sure whether this will render here.
Idek it
Well it didnt , so here we go again. This is just the bookmarklet code.
var s=document.createElement(“script”);s.setAttribute(’src’,”http://idek.net/shorten/?idek-api=true&idek-ref=your_app&idek-callback=js_callback&idek-anchor=anchortag&idek-url=”+encodeURIComponent(location.href));document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0].appendChild(s);
function js_callback(url){alert(url);}void(s);
Thanks man! I will need some time to figure out this though!
If you’re going to implement a bookmarklet and base it off of idek then just go to the site for that: http://idek.net/info/url-shortening-bookmarks.php
Or go to the developer who created it, me. If you need help just send me an email or hit me up on twitter, I’m @covati.
Hey, Thanks for dropping by and for sharing this one. I got it!
Good luck with your project! Guess you are a twitter addict, your blog is a lot twitterish,
Adam , sweet to see a developer supported effort. Just didnt like the idea of posting to twitter through idek.
The hack above still does good for a quick post though.
I understood a lot from this review than from mine !
Hey, This was not a review, though it was under the category of reviews, the important part is the bookmarklet.. lol
Yes that is a useful one. There’s even shorter ones, check out: http://txtn.us
It uses special characters to guarantee just 6 characters in the URL, like this: http://❽.ws/❤
Seems pretty cool.
They also have tools to reduce text using ligature replacements, to fit more into the 140 limits. And some tools for fun text – flipped words, mirrored words.
It’s beta but I’ve noticed it’s getting better.
wow! See that links. I am loving it!
This comment went to spam, so maybe if we use such links the emails and replies would be spammed. Thats an issue, the spam filters are not equipped to detect them I guess.
Thanks for the input here
Great post.
Thanks for sharing this service…
My pleasure
It is a really good service. But I usually use something called is.gd which has a firefox plugin to help with easy creation of these small urls to share on social media.
I have seen that plug-in, I liked its shortning from the right click menu. Thanks for dropping in
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