Have you ever wanted to share a website with your congregation, but the URL (the web address) is SOOOOOO long and complicated that you wouldn't want to publish it (and they wouldn't want to type it in)?

The website TinyURL.com can help this problem. This site lets you enter a long URL and it transforms it into a short one.

Pros:

• The result is MUCH shorter
• The URL doesn't expire (at least as long as the original URL is valid)
• The site now lets you name the result yourself (ex. at last August's workshop, Paul Edison-Swift wanted to provide a list of resources at http://archive.elca.org/webministry/workshops/index.html, so rather than use the randomly generated URL, he named it tinyurl.com/stepitup for the name of the workshop)
• It's REALLY easy to do
• There aren't any ads or any other visual signs when re-directed
  

Cons:

• It doesn't include the name of the site, which could be seen as less publicity for the original site
• Every TinyURL has to start tinyurl.com (so it could be seen as promoting this site, but it's a free service, so I say why argue?)