Closing down http://youtw.it YouTube URL shortener.

It's exactly 3 years ago that I tweeted preparing...

What was I preparing?, well I was busy setting up a YouTube URL shortener, at that time there was no Youtube Url shortener, so I thought it was a nice idea the create.

Many people asked why anyone would need a Url shortener. Well in short, it's handy with Twitter, and the link indicates a video, and on top of that you get insight in the click views.

The first step was to register the Italian domain youtw.it
That was a somewhat difficult process and remember that I had to fax twice.

Then I started coding on the Google App Engine platform and created the service in Python using opensource ur.ly code 

After a few nights of coding I had a working service with a bookmarklet and ready to be used.
But when I wanted to put it live I found out that App Engine didn't support naked domains.

I checked Microsoft Azure and they didn't support naked domains aswell.

So I posted on googleappengine support thead 777 and had contact with the App Engine people, but up until now it's not there.

To be able to continue my plan I created a workaround using the free DNS redirecter service http://freedns.afraid.org

But I didn't put it live because I wasn't comfortable with the workaround.

In December my father passed away.

In 2009 we moved in our new house, lot of work needed to be done in the house.

Months passed by and then in late 2009 YouTube launched there own URL shortener http://goog.le and later even http://youtu.be

The idea faded between other ideas like creating my first iPhone app PicoZoo

I paid the domain every year, but now my money is finished. I decided to evaluate the idea and asked around if people would use it, and that's clear to me. 

So I have decided to discontinue the service. 

Here a screenshot of the service.