San Francisco
– Twitter has announced plans to take over URL shortening on its service, so
that users can share links directly without having to use a third-party service
— potentially threatening the cottage industry created by Bit.ly and others.
The company has been wrapping links shared in Direct Messages in its own twt.tl
URL since March, as a means of preventing the spread of malware links.
Twitter
says it now wants to both offer an automatic link-shortener on the main service, and
expand its control over security.
Starting this summer, all links — including
any still posted via Bit.ly or other third-party services — will be wrapped
with a t.co URL.
"Ultimately, we want to display links in a way that
removes the obscurity of shortened link and lets you know where a link will
take you," Twitter’s Sean Garrett wrote in a blog post.
Related Links:
http://blog.twitter.com/2010/06/links-and-twitter-length-shouldnt.html
