Twitter changes their URL shortening strategy

From the Twitter blog:

When this is rolled out more broadly to users this summer, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL.

All links? Does that include bit.ly, tinyurl.com, flic.kr, 4sq.com, amzn.to, etc.? I’m obviously happy that they’re taking steps to get these largely unnecessary link middlemen out of the picture but some people are going to be pissed if they’re unshortening all links automatically.

Oh, and as far as how the feature will work, I like Blake Eskin’s suggestion:

Since @ and # work so well, why isn’t there one character to tell you here comes a link, replacing http:// ?

How about %? Or maybe //? So instead of “Check out http://kottke.org” it’d be something like “Check out %kottke.org” or “Check out //kottke.org”.

• Blake Eskin
• Twitter