Thursday, September 21, 2006
pURLs and PURLs
There has been some discussion on the PrintPlanet VDP listserv today about Personalized Uniform Resource Locator (pURL) and Persistent Uniform Resource Locator (PURL). This use of this term seems to cause confusion among printers and marketers.
pURLs
With the advent of digital printing and the variable imaging capabilities of these systems, marketers are starting to use personalized direct mail to direct consumers to websites using a personalized URL. Typically personalized URLs use the name of the individual to construct the URL. E.g www.fancywidget.com/AdamDewitz
Personalized URLs are being employed in marketing campaigns for a number of reasons:
- Response rates can be measured more precisely.
- Websites can provide more information about a product or service, and the information can be delivered with richer content such as animation, video, or sound.
- Marketers can use the website to collect additional information from the consumer (just fill out this quick survey and we will rush a complementary widget).
Personalized URLs are also called Response URLs and Personalized Response URLs.
PURLs
Long before print marketers started using pURL to describe personalized URLs, the information science community had adopted PURL as an acronym for Persistent Uniform Resource Locator.
The Online Computer Library Center (the originator of the PURL) describes the PURL as:
Functionally, a PURL is a URL. However, instead of pointing directly to the location of an Internet resource, a PURL points to an intermediate resolution service. The PURL resolution service associates the PURL with the actual URL and returns that URL to the client. The client can then complete the URL transaction in the normal fashion. In Web parlance, this is a standard HTTP redirect.
PURLS are based on the premise that Cool URIs don't change. This type of stuff is import when information is being cited from a web location or a standards document points to a URL.
An example of a PURL used for document reference is http://hdl.handle.net/1850/1190 which is a pointer to https://ritdml.rit.edu/dspace/handle/1850/1190, the location where you can download the latest RIT Test Targets
While the information science folks have clearly been using PURLs since the beginning of the web, marketers within the printing industry are taking it upon themselves to reinvent the term and thus create unneeded confusion.
I prefer Personalized URL for this new marketing application.
Posted in: Electronic Publishing | Information Science
