02.09.2010
I just got an automated email from Twitter announcing some changes. One of them seem to be that even they have realized how absolutely pointless URL-shortening is, and what they are doing about it.
From email:
In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the roll-out of our link wrapping service t.co, which wraps links in Tweets with a new, simplified link.
If you can't read, that is English for "Goodbye bit.ly and it's URL-shortening brothers. We'll be handling this on our own now, and you have no market".
What does this mean for me?
A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title.
There's no way to ready this besides "unless you are using antiquated technology like SMS, shortened links will be a thing of the past, finally". And thank god for that.
You will start seeing links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened links and lets you know where each link will take you.
It seems like twitter is actually acknowledging that shortened URLs are stupid and are apologizing for being the number one reason you see them all over the internets.
Hopefully this means the end of shortened URLs and good times ahead.