I’m running into “URI” more and more in tech talk space.
URI = Universal Resource Identifier (in)
URL = Universal Resource Locator (out)
The hip initials are “URI” explained here.
I predict “the people” will keep “URL” alive. People like to talk a little geek, but not this much. A conversation I heard the other day: “No, that’s an e-mail address, what you need is the URL. URLs don’t have ats in them.”
I’d have to say I agree with you. Even when you know URI is the “in” way to refer to it, URL seems more socially acceptable since everyone already knows what that is. I think if you start using URI you’re bound to get more strange looks from people, and you almost always have to explain the difference to them (which isn’t easy!).