nyti.ms

I really don't understand this shortened url business. As of recent, the start up company, bit.ly, has become the go-to service for acquiring shortened url's - basically the trick is to register url's in other countries (which you can do), and them forward them to your regular url.

Now, I understand the point of shortening urls for ease of use, but does this not contradict the ease of remembering? Everything knows that if you time in google.com, facebook.com, apple.com, nytimes.com, cnn.com, etc. where it's gonna take us. Primarily because we may use them all the time, but also because its usually just... the name of the company... then .com.

Now if were were to try to find nyti.ms, would it not be equally plausible to search for nytim.es. The problem that has arisen is that companies think we want shortened urls just for the heck of it... and because of Twitter's character limit. Yet two things of which I am certain: Twitter's character limit will be expanded, and urls with an of various domain names are hard as heck to remember?!

Shortening a url just for the sake of making it shorter is kin of silly, and honestly, not that much shorter. In a world of shortened text-speech, I understand fully what these major corporations are thinking. But honestly, I've not once felt that nytimes.com was just too much to type. If I go to a website I just bookmark it and call it a day, otherwise its pretty much a guessing game anyway. And on an ironic note, the only companies trying to shorten their names are the ones that everyone already knows!

Am I alone on the absurdity of this new trend?