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Google Technology

Google Acquires G.co Domain 133

Posted by CmdrTaco from the letters-are-money dept.
dkd903 writes "Google has announced that they have acquired a new domain – g.co. They said, 'We’ll only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts. That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service. There's no need to fret about the fate of goo.gl; we like it as much as you do, and nothing is changing on that front.'"
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Google Acquires G.co Domain More

Google Acquires G.co Domain

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  • in the future ... (Score:3)

    by jsnipy ( 913480 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2011 @08:57AM (#36810946) Journal
    ... it will just be "g"

  • From the article:

    We’ll only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts.

    If I were them, in an era when there are organizations dedicated to doing things for t3h lulz, I wouldn't be advertising something as essentially unhackable. This is just an excuse to point some shortcuts to goatse, tubgirl, rickroll, or lemon party...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by stms ( 1132653 )

      They're not saying its unhackable they're saying g.co will only be used to link to Google services like Gmail or Google Maps and you won't be able to make links sites like Slashdot or Twitter. It's no more likely to be hacked than Google.com.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Svippy ( 876087 )

      This is just an excuse to point some shortcuts to goatse, tubgirl, rickroll, or lemon party...

      Not if I beat you to it and enter those websites myself! Hah! Who's laughing now?!

  • Thanks largely to Twitter, a solution to a problem that doesn't exist (even text messages can be larger than 140 characters now on any modern phone).

    • Ever try to read someone a full-length URL over the phone?

      What about typing out a full length URL when you don't have the option of copy-paste?

      Or trying to copy/paste a multi-line URL in an IRC client while on your phone w/ a screen that's 2" wide?

      Please don't make the all-to-common mistake of thinking a technology or idea has no point simply because it doesn't fit your own usage patterns.

      • You mean, your phone doesn't have a keyboard? :p

      • Ever try to read someone a full-length URL over the phone?

        Why on earth would I ever need to do that? Telling them 3 keywords to search for on Google would probably be easier if I really needed to tell them verbally and for some reason couldn't just say "I'll e-mail/text you the link".

        And as long as we're on the subject of readibility, a string of random, case-sensitive alphanumeric characters doesn't score high on the readibility quotient. At least now they usually let you try asking for a readable URL, which will probably already be taken and you'll get whatever

        • Why on earth would I ever need to do that? Telling them 3 keywords to search for on Google would probably be easier if I really needed to tell them verbally and for some reason couldn't just say "I'll e-mail/text you the link".

          Requiring you to get the email address over the phone in some cases, which can be even more tedious than a URL.

          What? I thought even the iPhone supported that by now. *ducks*

          Not that copy paste is impossible - but that sometimes it's awkward and can be easier to type a few characters, on any phone.

          Really though the IRC client should be intelligent enough to shorten the displayed text for the link. Anything after ? is probably redundant. If you need to see the rest of the link, hover over it. (And yes, there should be a way to "hover" on a link, even on a phone.)

          Possibly - and yet software has shortcomings. Saying that the tool to workaround them is not useless because the workaround shouldn't be necessary is not a valid argument.

          Another use case - and one I mostly use it for - I have something I'm looking at on my phone, and want t

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AdamHaun ( 43173 )

        The solution to this problem is hyperlinks. Hyperlinks were also the solution to this problem a decade ago. On a computer, text doesn't have to be plain.

        Never understood why Twitter didn't allow those. (Or why it's 140 characters instead of 160, for that matter.)

        • For some use cases hyperlinks work. For some they don't. For some you can use either/or - choice is good, etc.

          Why do people have such a hard time with this kind of service? If you don't like it... don't use it. Nobody holds a gun to your head. Since millions of people are using it, I can't understand the argument that it's useless - because clearly to a signficant number of people it is *not* useless.

          The only thing that can be said is that it doesn't fit your personal criteria of "useful" -- and that's f

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AdamHaun ( 43173 )

            I'm not saying URL shorteners aren't useful. I'm saying that in most cases there's a better, existing solution that's less prone to linkrot and actually lets me see where I'm going.

            Hyperlinks aren't supported on Twitter, so the choice argument doesn't seem relevant here. (Also, it's other people's use of URL shorteners that affects me, but I can accept being outvoted.) If you want more choice, you should be arguing for hyperlinks, not defending URL shorteners.

    • Thanks largely to Twitter, a solution to a problem that doesn't exist (even text messages can be larger than 140 characters now on any modern phone).

      I just wrote a letter yesterday (distribution to ~100 people) which includes a link to an online calendar. I don't control that infrastructure, and the original URL was about 80 characters long. I included an is.gd URL in the letter so people only have to type about 10 characters to see the calendar.

      Why is this not a valid solution?

      • A letter? Like one of the kind that you mail? With real stamps?

        Okay, I'll begrudgingly admit that if I had to inscribe a long URL in hieroglyphics on a clay tablet, a URL shortener might be helpful.

        Why is this not a valid solution?

        It's valid, it's just less than ideal. Much less than ideal.

    • You don't know what URL shorteners are really for?

      They're for tracking/counting, particularly for outbound links when your own httpd isn't where the link leads. (But also for whenever someone simply doesn't want to ask IT for the apache logs or wants to use a trendy new reporting tool rather than rely on the last couple decades worth of accreted tools (what can I say, people are funny).)

      And the best thing about counting is that you don't have to count the cost. [slashdot.org]

      • Outgoing link trackers don't necessarily shorten the links, and URL shorteners don't necessarily provide handy tracking tools.

        They're similar, but still mostly-unrelated, things.

    • google also uses a lot of one-character variable names in their javascript. Maybe at their scale, they do care about saving a few characters on each page they serve.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by kvothe ( 2013374 )
      I guess you don't consider blackberries to be modern phones, because my old storm2 definitely couldn't handle more than 160 chars per message! - - - That's ok, I don't consider it modern, either...

  • This is indeed news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Idimmu Xul ( 204345 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2011 @08:57AM (#36810954) Homepage Journal

    Please keep me updated on other domains Google buy, you've just made my day better.

  • Seriously, g.co is lame. The Goog.Gl is so much more fun.

    Why does anyone care about saving 3 characters of space!?

    • Darn, I mean goo.gl

      And again, it's two characters different?? Who cares??

      • When I see goo.gl I'm trained to think it's goatse because I believe anyone can use that domain where Google stated that g.co will be for Google to use only.

    • beca

    • G.co is much cleaner in its spelling. I think Goog.gl poses a huge security risk for users because someone could easily provide a malware link to something spelled remarkably similar to goog.gl. Honestly, a normal user is not going to "get" the concept of a TLD that is oh-so-clever in almost spelling out "Google." It is not intuitive. This is the same reason I never bothered with Delicious; I'm not going to play a guessing game as to where the dots could be ambiguously placed.

      • Case in point: the domain is actually goo.gl, not the goog.gl as you called it. GP messed it up too, so maybe he needs look no further than himself for the question to which g.co is the answer.

    • Why does anyone care about saving 3 characters of space!?

      Because typing long strings of characters is boring, tedious, and error prone.

      I know, I used to enter multi-page listings of machine code from Run magazine.

    • The headline misled you. From the official release:

      We’ll only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts. That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service. There’s no need to fret about the fate of goo.gl; we like it as much as you do, and nothing is changing on that front. It will continue to be our public URL shortener that anybody can use to shorten URLs across the web.

      It sounds like only Google owned URLs will be available through g.co and the public will continue to use goo.gl so no need to debate this it's really a minor amount of links compared to what users produce.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by basotl ( 808388 )
        I thought the summary did pretty well as it used most of your quoted text. I know this is Slashdot but people should at least read the summary before posting.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pz ( 113803 )

      Ever since Twitter, which puts a premium on brevity since it was originally based on the SMS limitation of 160 characters, having short URLs has become vital.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Pope ( 17780 )
      I dunno about that. The first few times I saw goo.gl addresses, I assumed they were for phishing. I still second guess them because it's easy to poison the URL.

  • Also on the news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ccguy ( 1116865 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2011 @09:02AM (#36811002) Homepage
    Google hired the guy that made the original decision to use 2 digits for the year in dates back in the 60.

    When asked, Joe Dinousaur said: "Well, if you think I saved memory then and it was 2 bytes per date, imagine what I can do now with millions of URLs. Back in the day I weren't able to convince Tim that he should stick to Pascal compatible strings in URLs, and now we're stuck with Kb long string in the URL. I believe with google's support I will be able to fix that horror."

  • That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service.

    I'm only confident that I will be tracked, photographed, my wifi details leaked and/or x-rayed. Privacy stops wherever you g.co?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ccguy ( 1116865 )

      I'm only confident that I will be tracked, photographed, my wifi details leaked and/or x-rayed.

      Yes. So nothing new really added to the system, it's just the convenience.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by maxume ( 22995 )

      They wanted to collect and analyze your tears.

  • g.cx to be bought (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The most convientient way to access the most famous site on the internet.

  • by the letter g.

    Thanks, I'll get back to watching TV with my kids now.

  • Drop the "oogle". Just "g".

  • ok, but ko (Score:3)

    by lfourrier ( 209630 ) on Tuesday July 19, 2011 @09:29AM (#36811312)
    try https://g.co/

    g.co use an invalid security certificate

    Certificate valide only for :
        *.google.com , google.com , *.atggl.com , *.youtube.com , youtube.com , *.ytimg.com , *.google.com.br , *.google.co.in , *.google.es , *.google.co.uk , *.google.ca , *.google.fr , *.google.pt , *.google.it , *.google.de , *.google.cl , *.google.pl , *.google.nl , *.google.com.au , *.google.co.jp , *.google.hu , *.google.com.mx , *.google.com.ar , *.google.com.co , *.google.com.vn , *.google.com.tr , *.android.com , *.googlecommerce.com

    (error code : ssl_error_bad_cert_domain)

  • I don't see how exactly this fits the definition of "stuff that matters". Or "news for nerds" too, actually.

  • OK .. so I can trust g.co links, 'cause Google tells me that they are un-hackable (and I trust Google implicitly - more so than FB ;-) ) But what happens when those glyphs are rendered in different charsets (or what ever the correct terminology is) that look like g.co, but aren't what Google says are g.co? This just seems like a spoofing attack just waiting to happen.
  • I thought with the new anything goes TLD rules Google could just buy and make a .google or .g TLD?

  • That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service.

    You know how I knew that before? If the link was in the google.com domain. Someone at Google must have seen the Overstock.com commercials explaining how o.co is also Overstock and think, "Damn, we need us some of that!"

    I don't understand this. I get it, they think we're all two lazy to type the whole name with our thumbs on a smartphone, but for the last 10 years how many millions of dollars have been spent to persuade potential customers "when you're thinking bargains, think Overstock.com" or "google.co

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      The seem to be centralizing a location for all their services into 1 easy to remember domain. And they can't very well use Google because they already use it for something else.

      Not really a bad idea.

      • centralizing a location for all their services into 1 easy to remember domain [...] can't very well use Google because they already use it

        Hmm, yeah, maps.google.com, mail.google.com, images.google.com, video.google.com, news.google.com, translate.google.com, scholar.google.com, docs.google.com, groups.google.com... obviously they can't use Google to centralize all their services, it's really kind of overcrowded already.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by n7ytd ( 230708 )

        The seem to be centralizing a location for all their services into 1 easy to remember domain. And they can't very well use Google because they already use it for something else.

        Not really a bad idea.

        But that's just the thing: 1 easy to remember domain. Somehow the mental connection of "g.co == Google stuff" is easier than "google.com == Google stuff", even though the latter is what everyone has been using for 10+ years?

        Even nuttier: if I visit g.co in my browser, the landing page tells me that I've reached Google central, but I don't land on any Google properties. If I actually want to do anything with Google (maps, mail, videos, etc.) I still have to click the Google logo at the top of the page. No

  • So, I shortened it. See:
    http://bit.ly/i8zRxz [bit.ly]

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