

Twitter launches own shortener t.co - JereCoh
http://blog.twitter.com/2010/06/links-and-twitter-length-shouldnt.html

======
apike
From users' perspective, the big thing here is that clients can now show where
links in tweets actually lead. For brevity, the link text should probably just
be the domain it leads to, but it should make things a whole lot more
readable.

Before - This is a great news site: _<http://bit.ly/2Mp91y> _

After - This is a great news site: _news.ycombinator.com_

A loss for URL shortener services, but a win for users.

~~~
natrius
Clients could have easily done this before.

    
    
      HEAD /2Mp91y HTTP/1.1
      Host: bit.ly
    
      ...
    
      Status: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved
      Location: http://news.ycombinator.com/
    

If the goal was minimizing requests, Twitter could've saved the endpoint on
its end and passed the data through the API. A new shortener was unnecessary,
though it's easy to see why it is desirable for them.

~~~
apike
Querying each URL would be impractical to do on the Twitter client side,
especially on a mobile device, even simply from the latency before you can
render perspective. You could render the tweets with the shortened links and
then reflow the text if/when each HEAD request returns, but that would
probably result in a crummy, slow experience for the reader as they scroll
through tweets.

Twitter could indeed have done it on their side, but just doing it themselves
is more efficient for them and provides a bit of extra user benefit - the fact
it's automatic so you get more room for text in your tweets, their malicious
link protection, and reliability if you assume Twitter is more reliable than J
Random URL Shortener.

~~~
natrius
> _Still, skipping the middle man is both more efficient_

The middle man will not be skipped. It will be wrapped. Two redirects instead
of one.

<http://twitter.com/twitterapi/status/15741693182>

~~~
apike
I've updated my post to be clear that I meant more efficient for Twitter, not
the end user in that case. Also, my assumption is that people use this instead
of normal URL shorteners in most cases.

~~~
natrius
Ah, I misunderstood.

Regardless, URL shorteners cannot be described as beneficial for users (except
those who want to track clicks on their links). They make it take longer to
get to the page. They are an extra point of failure. They are bad for users.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, but it isn't altruistic by any
measure.

------
briansmith
Besides URL shorteners being totally unnecessary, this just slows down users'
browsing and diminishes their privacy. Basically, every Twitter app will have
to become Spyware in order to comply with Twitter's new ToS.

FWIW, Here are my messages to the Twitter developer list about it:

[http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-
talk/msg/...](http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-
talk/msg/103fa01c26ecbd55)

[http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-
talk/msg/...](http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-
talk/msg/c230ab4054b6536a)

I think it is disgusting how Twitter has appropriated the old post-9/11 "we're
spying on you for for own safety" stance that governments have been
terrorizing citizens with. Basically, their spyware is protecting you
from...other spyware. All for a fraction of a fraction of a penny per click.

Also note that their t.co shortener will create links that are 19 characters
long. But, j.mp links are only 18 characters long, which means t.co links
won't even be as short as possible. So, it's worse all around.

------
paulgb
> If you are already partial to a particular shortener when you tweet, you can
> continue to use it for link shortening and analytics as you normally would,
> and we'll wrap the shortened links you submit.

I really hope this habit doesn't catch on. If it does each link will have
three points of failure instead of one (as it should) or two (as it will with
t.co).

~~~
fizx
Twitter will likely crawl the final targets of the urls, so that when bit.ly
goes out of business, the t.co urls pointing to bit.ly can get redirected to
the canonical link. So I don't think it's quite as bad as you're thinking.

~~~
DougBTX
Apparently if you have a unique word in the expanded version of your url, then
search for your tweet containing only the shortened url using the unique word,
you will still find the tweet. I've not tested it myself, but I took it as
evidence that they are indeed caching fully resolved urls.

~~~
paulgb
This is true. For example, few of these tweets contain the search term:
<http://search.twitter.com/search?q=news.ycombinator>

Hopefully they'll be resolving all the way down the redirect chain.

------
bonaldi
"routing links through this service will eventually contribute to the metrics
behind our Promoted Tweets platform and provide an important quality signal
for our Resonance algorithm"

So this is Twitter's Digg bar: they want to wrap and trace _every_ link that
goes in a Tweet? So much for all those custom bit.ly domains. So much for
bit.ly.

These guys are going crass quick. @alex's decision to quit is less and less
surprising.

~~~
tdavis
_So much for bit.ly._

And this is great news, as far as I'm concerned. Generic shortened URLs are
becoming a plague upon the web and are marginally useful at best outside of
Twitter. Even more props to Twitter for demystifying links where applicable
instead of taking the easier route of pure obscurity. The sooner third-party
shorteners disappear from Twitter the sooner they can disappear from the rest
of the web and we can have link transparency back again.

On a related note, I'm actually quite happy that Twitter is starting to close
up their platform. People can stop pretending it's some open platform for
global communication and finally realize it's a novel service thanks to its
popularity, but little more.

~~~
aditya
_Generic shortened URLs are becoming a plague upon the web and are marginally
useful at best outside of Twitter_

Marginally useful at best outside of Twitter? Care to explain? Less than 1% of
bitly's traffic is coming from twtitter, so obviously there are other people
that find value in trackable URLs... I'm curious why you think it isn't
useful?

~~~
india
URL shortners break the web in many ways.

Link rot, link hijack, it takes longer to reach the page, additional point of
failure and domain based algorithms break. In other words, plague.

~~~
jamesbritt
Well, OK.

But being able to pop in a nice terse URL where a long one would break in some
E-mail client is handy.

~~~
jules
Join us in the 21st century and use HTML emails. You can use any text on a
link, amazing huh?

~~~
jamesbritt
When you send HTML email, it guarantees that all recipients are rendering it
as HTML too?

~~~
jules
For those that also live in the 21st century, yes. Which mail clients don't
render HTML? Perhaps the users who still use ancient mail clients should
consider switching, or endure reading HTML. I'm not going optimize for the
minority by making web sites in plain text either for the few users who refuse
to use a web browser.

------
aditya
Note: As Raffi clarified, this isn't a "shortener" but a "wrapper"

<http://twitter.com/twitterapi/status/15739646901> and
<http://twitter.com/twitterapi/status/15739827266>

~~~
Tichy
Bla Blubb. Of course it is an URL shortener.

~~~
cynicalkane
_Bla Blubb. Of course it is an URL shortener._

I would vote this up were it not for "Bla Blubb". I have no idea what that is
supposed to say.

~~~
Tichy
It's supposed to say that Twitter is just babbling to hide the fact that it is
simply a URL shortener.

------
arohner
"We will be updating the TOS to require you to check t.co and register the
click."

Damn. Looks like URL shorteners are here to stay, permanently, and twitter is
crowding out all existing link shorteners.

~~~
dmix
They already know what everyones clicking on.

Except maybe in the twitter clients.

~~~
tcdent
"Twitter clients" is a larger term than you realize. I've done banner
campaigns, widgets and promotional websites that all display tweets in ways
Twitter would be unable to track without this.

------
dtsingletary
I think URL shorteners are cool, and all the rage, but: \- I remember when
del.icio.us/ came out. Not that it's a shortener, but they all have this
clever naming crap. When you're not able to click the link, it's awfully hard
to remember-- okay, did the first period come after the first three letters?
What's the bottom domain, again? How do you even spell delicious? Did they
spell it right?

\- There's an implicit trust that must be made before expecting a user to
click on any shortened URL. Since you can't follow it through to the content
without actually clicking on it, there's no way of knowing whether you're
headed to a clever browser hijack (or worse)!

\- Which brings us to the work-safe barrier that most everyone who works a
real job has. Websense, in most cases, blocks anything that's streaming media,
TV, porn, advertisements, gambling, etc. etc. etc. And then it logs it, and it
logs which user accesses it. When I'm at work, I'm pretty judicious-- I don't
want to be recorded as clicking on YouTube links, or listening to Kanye West's
latest gaffe, let alone going to Facebook or Myspace. URL shortners completely
obfuscate where the link is taking you-- so the damage is done without you
even knowing what choice you make. Therefore, unless I'm absolutely certain it
came from someone I know, and it's specified what it is, I'm not clicking that
shit. Which brings us back to implicit trust.

Most people don't check the links first, or even do this 'trust check' before
they click on links. How long until we see, "Woman fired for watching Jack
Johnson video on company time?" (accidentally, of course). It shouldn't be
that way, but it will be before too long.

------
SkyMarshal
Interesting shoutout at the end to COInternet and the now-global .co TLD. I
wasn't even aware of that.

They're running quite a marketing campaign for the launch, anyone think it
will rival .com's popularity?

~~~
chaosmachine
.co is a huge opportunity for squatters. I can't tell you how many times I've
typed "site.co" instead of "site.com" because I hit enter too quickly.

For legitimate uses, it's terrible. Imagine having to say "that's co NOT
com... see-oh. no M!" every time you give out your domain.

~~~
ericd
This is ridiculous... why is this TLD being allowed? Its main use is going to
be abuse, ranging from squatting to phishing (chase.co, paypal.co, anyone?).

~~~
SkyMarshal
It looks like they're giving trademarks registered before 2008 first dibs, so
as long as those big companies' IT departments are on the ball, they can pre-
empt the squatters.

~~~
ericd
Yeah, but for a tax of $300. The big companies will doubtless all register
theirs, but there are countless other sites that won't have the time/resources
to do this.

------
scorchin
From their help page: <http://help.twitter.com/entries/109623>

> "All links included in Direct Message notification emails currently pass
> through our link service and are converted to a <http://t.co> link. We've
> also begun testing this service for links in Tweets"

I'm curious whether they're going to outright put a blanket ban on
"alternative" URL shorteners like they did with Twitter-based Ad services.

~~~
maukdaddy
Looks like they're going to wrap existing shortened URLs with t.co:

 _If you are already partial to a particular shortener when you tweet, you can
continue to use it for link shortening and analytics as you normally would,
and we'll wrap the shortened links you submit._

[http://blog.twitter.com/2010/06/links-and-twitter-length-
sho...](http://blog.twitter.com/2010/06/links-and-twitter-length-
shouldnt.html)

~~~
TotlolRon
It is not a shortener. It is a small condom. That's what the .co stands for.

------
mattmanser
What is wrong with these people, just fix twitter so url's don't count to the
count.

Morons.

There's no better user experience to a shortened url, it's like having
unprotected sex with a random in a nightclub, you've no idea what you could
end up with.

Repeat after me, shortened urls break the web and are inherently evil.

~~~
solutionyogi
[http://That.will.probably.lead.to.abuse.as.I.can.send.a.long...](http://That.will.probably.lead.to.abuse.as.I.can.send.a.long.message.by.using.the.url.format.and.bypassing.the.message.limit)

~~~
DrSprout
Yes, it would be horrible if people could send messages longer than 140
characters via Twitter. The Internet as we know it would collapse.

~~~
notauser
There was a comment on Reddit a while back about what the 140 character limit
means in different places:

    
    
      In English, you get a comment.
      In Japanese, you get a poem or a brief news article.
      In Chinese, you get a short story... it might as well be a novel.
    

And someone gave an example Chinese tweet that translated to:

 _"You guys are the Sina fans other there? 'Keep on Perseverance' (some
literate group) is publishing some online literature collection, referencing
to the sissy poet character in the 'Cellphone' TV series. I know the people in
'Sina Literature Collection" (another group) well since junior high school;
often went to their chat room to chit-chat bull. His (Keep on Perservance)
main page's arrangement is overwhelming; I can't digest them. My preference is
simple, slim, light-breeze style of literature. Hey, today is the clan chief's
birthday, too. Don't know how he/she enjoying his/her day in Swissland. May be
eating chocolate fondue? I can't do winter hibernation anymore. Have to come
out. And have been messing around with you all day long."_

~~~
riobard
There's a tradeoff between larger character set and easier input method. It's
not trivial to input Chinese characters with keyboard. It compensates by
allowing richer expressions with fewer characters.

~~~
bonzoesc
The APL of human languages.

------
JereCoh
It will also be expanding the size of the tweet to 140 not including the URI
and providing expanded URIs in addition to the shortened link. More
information at [http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-
talk/brow...](http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development-
talk/browse_thread/thread/14d5474c13ed84aa)

~~~
dacort
Incorrect. The 140 characters includes the length of the t.co link (19
characters), not whatever the original link was.

------
philwelch
I wonder when some tiny country will decide to just turn their entire top-
level national TLD into a url shortener.

~~~
dboyd
This has been done: <http://to./>

HN: <http://to./4dw2>

Note that the 'dot' (in to.) is necessary to make the hostname absolute, so it
doesn't fail in pretty much every browser. Otherwise, the URL should just be:
<http://to/>

~~~
known
<http://to./> urls are not recognized by twitter.

------
sbierwagen
Any reason Twitter just doesn't let you use HTML anchors, and skip this whole
mess?

~~~
cmelbye
That would be incredibly unhelpful. It's much more to type, it's yet another
thing to sanitize, and most users don't know HTML.

~~~
makmanalp
You just do: visible_text|url , or maybe that whole thing in brackets. It
turns it into an anchor. There, was that so hard?

~~~
cmelbye
Or you could just type in the URL. Oh wait, that's exactly what Twitter is
doing.

------
dolphenstein
Why not just do a direct link and just shorten the anchor text? Bypass all
this t.co crap.

------
samaparicio
Instead of all this complexity, why not simply NOT COUNT the characters of any
URL? There is no reason anymore for 140 characters.

------
thegyppo
Question is, will they start redirecting shortened links via affiliates to
generate additional revenue?

------
rbranson
It lists another company in the WHOIS for the t.co domain. This begs the
question: are they leasing it?

~~~
Frazzydee
Nope. It was registered April 26 2010 by ".CO Founders program".

.CO founders are hand-picked to ensure the domain will "contribute to the .CO
community in a meaningful way." In return, they get get first dibs on a .CO
domain name, which will be publicly launched in July 2010.
(<http://www.cointernet.co/domain/become-co-founder>)

Maybe it is registered under the program's name instead of the actual
registrant to ensure registrants under the program stick with their
originally-submitted plan. Or at least they can't turn around and change it to
a domain parked ad page.

Or perhaps the whois registrant name will be changed after the public launch.

------
fseek
What a way to kill bit.ly and others....

