urlBorg: why build yet another URL shortening service?

So, urlBorg has been rewritten in Python and is now hosted on Google AppEngine (make a note, the new address is urlborg.com).

But why build "yet another URL shortening service", when it's so easy to build one? Any web developer could build one in less than an hour, couldn't they?

The truth is that building a URL shortening service is a trivial task. Building one that could scale is not. I designed urlBorg having in mind "will it work if it made it to TechCrunch or if CNN.com made extensive use of it?" Building such a service is not trivial, believe me. (And I won't know if urlBorg will make it either, but I think it will.)

But scale wasn't my only motivation. I believe there's a lot of space to add value to such a simple service. A quick look at the API will reveal some of my ideas -urlBorg goes beyond returning a short URL.

More details to come soon :-)