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Twitter to Roll Out t.co URL-Shortening Service

by Amar Toor on June 9, 2010 at 12:30 PM

twitter shortening service
Take it from Twitter: "Length doesn't matter." It may not be a universal maxim, but when it comes to the size of a link referenced within a tweet, at least, Twitter apparently doesn't believe that its 140-character limit poses much of a barrier. With that in mind, then, the company has begun rolling out its own URL-shortening service in the hopes of enhancing both user experience and safety.

As the company announced on its blog, Twitter has begun testing a shortening service called t.co, and is looking to roll it out on a wider basis this summer. With t.co, lengthy URLs posted on the Twitter site or on third-party apps will be automatically shrunk and wrapped with a t.co code. But if you're accessing the site from a computer instead of a cell phone, you'll see the entire link -- a feature that, in Twitter's words, "removes the obscurity" of abbreviated URLs and helps guard against spam.


The micro-blogging site also hopes that the new service will flesh out the metrics underpinning its Promoted Tweets service by giving a better idea of what kinds of links users will find relevant or interesting. Developers working on Twitter's platform can already prepare for the wider launch of t.co, and can test their codes on a few accounts that have begun using the service.

Incumbent URL-shortening companies like Bit.ly probably won't take kindly to t.co, but it's not like the move was completely unforeseen, either. Since March, the site has been routing links sent via Direct Message through its own shortening service as a way to combat spam and phishing scams. And Twitter announced its plans to launch its own service for users at its Chirp conference in April. As the company begins to consolidate services, it appears that independent developers like Bit.ly will have to adjust, and, as the LA Times suggests, perhaps capitalize on the analytics and custom domains it already offers to corporations. [From: Twitter, via: LATimes]

Tags: Bit.ly, chirp, developer, developers, socialnetworking, t.co, t.co url shortener, T.coUrlShortener, top, tweet, tweets, twitter, URL, url-shortener, urlshortening, web

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