Kevin Gilbertson is an American web developer best known as the creator of

TinyURL TinyURL is a URL shortening web service, which provides short aliases for redirection of long URLs. Kevin Gilbertson, a web developer, launched the service in January 2002 as a way to post links in newsgroup postings which frequently had long, c ...

launched in January 2002. TinyURL is a

URL shortener URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using a redirect which links to the web page that has a ...

, a web service that provides short aliases for redirection of long URLs. According to ''

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

'', Gilbertson had been riding

unicycle A unicycle is a vehicle that touches the ground with only one wheel. The most common variation has a frame with a saddle, and has a pedal-driven direct-drive. A two speed hub is commercially available for faster unicycling. Unicycling is prac ...

s since he was a kid, and created TinyURL to convert postings on unicycling

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are not only discussion groups or conversations, but also a repository to publish articles, start ...

s into Web pages (since fewer people know their way around newsgroups than the Web). Google's

AdSense Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These adver ...

links covered operating costs. Gilbertson, known by friends as "Gilby," lives in Mexico with his wife. He learned about computers from his father, a software engineer, with whom he also rides unicycles as part of the Twin Cities Unicycle Club.Gonzalez, Tony (2008-07-08)
"Tiny idea, big wheel"
The Star Tribune.

External links

Kevin Gilbertson's personal website
(a link is not reachable as of 12/14/20)

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Web designers {{US-compu-bio-stub