Twitter has finally dragged its slovenly botty into 2011 and announced that links shared on Twitter.com will be automatically shortened, courtesy of their t.co URL shortener.
Take that big link!
Meandering, sprawling, and even epic links will now find themselves being slimmed down to mere shadow of their former selves, with Twitter’s new gubbins slapping them down to just 19 characters long.
To start gorging yourselves on this slimmed down link action, simply paste a link of any length into the Tweet box on Twitter.com. Once you’ve put the finishing touches to your magnificent Tweet, you hit the “Tweet” button, and the new service will automagically shorten the link so that it only takes up 19 characters.
Pre-empting your next question, a posting on Twitter’s blog asks in a rhetorical kind of manner:
What’s in it for me?
Sharing links on Twitter.com is now simple and instant. Plus, since we show a shortened version of the original link, people will know which site the link points to. This service also increases security. If users click links that are reported as malicious, we direct them to a page that warns them.
We’re still rather big fans of bit.ly’s comprehensive link shortening service (the Chrome plug in for this is particularly fab) but it’s good to see Twitter finally adding this long overdue feature. Huzzah!
