An ultra-hip trend It started with TinyURL. Then Twitter came along, making the need for URL shortening services even greater. Between is.gd and Bit.ly and dozens of other URL shorteners, it’s now the cool thing to do. So it only makes sense that the New York Times would get in on that action with NYTurl.com, which some of their developers created.
Now you see it, now you don’t Unfortunately, the site was getting abused by people using the service for non-NYT-related content, and if you go to the page now, it says, “Taken down for now due to abuse.” When we saw that, we elicited a very loud laugh, because it’s not often the New York Times has egg on their face in a clearly embarrassing way like this. LOL. source