Twitter Unveils URL Shortener (finally)

Twitter finally starting to release its automated link shortener to some users. The link shortener is far more elegant than the one I spotted on May 21st 2011. The official release version comes with no “Shorten” button.

Enter any long URL in the tweet box and Twitter tells you that “Link will appear shortened”. The link will highlighted in blue. The shortened URL will take up 19 characters of your tweet. You are left with 121 characters more to add your comment.

“Shortened” link is not converted into other format. Users will continue to see the URL in long-form (at least, part of it) on each tweet. This is only possible if you tweet from Twitter website. Links converted by third-party shortener like bit.ly will not be uncompressed into long-form on Twitter stream.

Tweeting a long URL

Exposing portion of the long URL

Twitter Unveils URL Shortener (finally) originally appeared on GreyReview.com on June 9, 2011.


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