With so much information to be found on the internet it often is necessary and/or helpful to the reader to cite web content - be it excerpts of cited documents on Google Books or entire documents which often don't have e.g. a doi number. Yet, the regarding URLs often are extremely long and thus bulky if printed in a footnote. They are also cumbersome to copy for the reader.

A link shortener fit to serve scientific needs would be a solution. This would require a provider dedicated to supporting scientific research and publishing which could credibly guarantee for the unaltered availability of the service also in the (distant) future.

Mendeley could be such a provider. The shortener itself could probably easily be implemented into the Mendeley Desktop.

I was planning to convert my personal article library to a post-grad fellows library in my specialty field but the addition of the fellows to a private group and the need for more than 5 G of space makes the plan prohibitively expensive. I am satisfied with my "small" experience of the last two years as an individual subscriber, but there is now no way to economically continue to use the product as I had planned. I am agreeable to paying for "cloud" services, but the monthly charge for what I was intending to do will quickly exceed $100. I am looking for alternatives unless you can reasonable revisit your recent changes.

ubuntu@ubuntu-desktop:~$ mendeleydesktop
Using system Qt version 4.6.2 in /usr/lib
Running /usr/bin/../../opt/mendeleydesktop/bin/mendeleydesktop
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-cif" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-cml" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-daylight-smiles" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-gamess-input" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-gamess-output" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-gaussian-log" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-mopac-out" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-pdb" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-xyz" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-gaussian-checkpoint" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-gaussian-cube" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/avogadro.desktop": "chemical/x-qchem-output" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)
Warning in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop": usage of MIME type "x-scheme-handler/http" is discouraged (the use of "x-scheme-handler" as media type is strongly discouraged in favor of a subtype of the "application" media type)
Warning in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop": usage of MIME type "x-scheme-handler/https" is discouraged (the use of "x-scheme-handler" as media type is strongly discouraged in favor of a subtype of the "application" media type)
Warning in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop": usage of MIME type "x-scheme-handler/ftp" is discouraged (the use of "x-scheme-handler" as media type is strongly discouraged in favor of a subtype of the "application" media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/sa.edu.ksa.ayat-ayt-ayat.desktop": "ayt/ayat" is an invalid MIME type ("ayt" is an unregistered media type)
Warning in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/mendeleydesktop.desktop": usage of MIME type "x-scheme-handler/mendeley" is discouraged (the use of "x-scheme-handler" as media type is strongly discouraged in favor of a subtype of the "application" media type)
Error in file "/home/~/.local/share/applications/kde4-kalzium.desktop": "chemical/x-cml" is an invalid MIME type ("chemical" is an unregistered media type)