skyb.us

In search of a prefix: "//" should indicate a URL

You know it's an email address when something's in the form foo@example.com -- the '@' and the domain gives it away. Nowadays people know that @schuyler1d probably indicates a Twitter account by the '@' prefix, and #urlprefix is a subject tag.

But the most common Internet URI of all still has an unwieldy "http://" prefix or "www." too long. We used to be able to tell, because everything ended in ".com" (even when it didn't) but now URL shorteners and cool domains have hacked all the country codes to bring us delicio.us (which had to register delicious.com, because no one could tell that it was a URL), bit.ly (using Libya's registrar). And now ICANN is allowing a glut of TLDs (the ".com" part), even though no one uses them.... because everyone expects to type ".com"

Now Mozilla and Google are starting a trend to remove the icky prefixes from the web browser -- maybe removing the URL bar altogether, because the "http(s)://www." is ugly and ultimately confusing to users who shouldn't have to care about protocols (in the near future, https or another secure protocol should be the default).

This is going too far, because we still need a way to indicate that we're referring to a web address in text, including in the address/title/url/search/awesome browser bar. It's a larger issue that extends to print -- business cards, advertisements, tweets -- they all need a bunch of extra characters to communicate to people that YOU ARE LOOKING AT A WEB ADDRESS.

Let's stop this insanity. Twitter users (and $larry_wall) showed us the way. "//example.com" should mean you're looking at a URL. This site is //skyb.us. This'll look a whole lot sexier (and more concise) in ads. Google can use the spdy protocol without lying to its users, and maybe airlines can start using the //wright.aero TLD.

I like it!

Very good idea. I'll start using it in business cards.

While we're at it, lets start using sequential text boxes too!
http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2010/08/creation-sequential-text-boxes/

You have no idea what you're

You have no idea what you're talking about. It pained me to read this post. Please stick to your day job and stop trying to reinvent things.

kthx!

I'm not too sure to be

I'm not too sure to be honest. Browsers don't support typing it in that way - and you just know that's what people will expect. I guess it could be changed in upcoming versions, but its a big change and will particularly affect the less-technical users - and isn't that who you are mainly targeting here? I can see where you are going with this and I agree that a prefix might well be useful but lets be honest, on a business card or whatnot we can just indicate it in any way - perhaps with text or some sort of icon.

Plus, it's rather too close to a windows UNC path for comfort.

Already adopted

This is already adopted in latest browsers. In the past you had to link to but now you can just make an .

oops


That html didn't work. Was trying to say you could write a link like [a href='//google.com]link[/a]

It is...

If I remember correctly, // already indicates an URL in HTML. You can create a link with <a href="//example.com/index.html">click</a>, and it will default on the current protocol (either HTTP or HTTPS, in most cases).

How about just appending a

How about just appending a single /? Feels simpler and more natural to me than prepending anything does.

For example: skyb.us/

+1 Browsers would have to

+1

Browsers would have to change the default scheme from file to http. RIght now, all the browsers will default to file:/// if you use that notation.

Yes please

You left out one new to the scene but likely to stick around: Google's Plus. +Caleb Maclennan is just like Twitter's @CalebMaclennan but indicates what network the user is to be found on.

Obviously you've been getting beat up in comments, but I think there is something to be said for this. It shouldn't be intended as a full protocol definition. The fact that browsers could make it the default url scheme is beside the point, it's just supposed to be a human readable clue that the following information is a URL that you could enter in the browser.

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