The lack of enterprise short url services

Blogging about this problem in the open source Alfresco enterprise content management system, Dr Q writes:

"There is an interesting but annoying issue with Alfresco document links. It is way too long and it looks particularly terrible in email messages... One quick solutions is to use the services to provide by vendors like TinyURL*. But is that really necessary? The answer is no. How about writing a simple webscript and assign it a short URL with a short unique ID?"

This isn't just a problem with Alfresco - just about every Web-based enterprise system suffers from this problem. I just wonder why none of them come bundled with an enterprise short URL service as standard? I suspect part of the problem is a myopic assumption that users act as individuals and will browse the application to find the information or function they want. Of course, we really know that information is social.

*TinyURL is one of a number of web services that provides short aliases to redirect long URLs.

Technorati tags: Alfresco, URL redirection, TinyURL, short URL, usability, social life of information, web-based applications