URL Expansion proposal

> With the popularity of the Web it kills me to see ads listing the
> convoluted URL now in existence (http://www.companyname.com/
> Why couldn't browser developers agree on a standardized character
> expansion to make the advertised addresses simpler and more
> user friendly?

> My proposal is to agree on expanding the first * (asterisk) in
> a URL to "http://www."; the second asterisk to ".com/"
> and any subsequent * to a slash. That way,
> a user typing *companyname* in a URL field would actually be
> sending the entire URL. 

> Thus *IBM* would be expanded to http://www.ibm.com/

> A whole better way to advertise your Web address!

> Comments?


Wouldn't it be nicer if there were some directory of company name and
product names that would map to URLs, with spelling correction,
approximate matching, so that companies wouldn't feel compelled to
create domain names 'toothpaste.com', 'pimples.com', 'toystory.com',
and 'nikecommercial.com' just in case?

Actually, having 'FOO' expand to
"http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=FOO" might be the simplest way
to go.

Received on Saturday, 13 January 1996 20:03:12 UTC