Comments on: Twitter Under Fire for Link-shortening Service Plans

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 23:19:30 +0000

Yes, that's a good point, Steve.

By: Steve Ivy

Steve Ivy — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:55:24 +0000

Mathew - while it's true that Google routes that link to the site through their tracker, they aren't rewriting the content itself, which is what Twitter is basically going to be doing.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:52:52 +0000

That's a good point, Amit -- I know that others have also suggested that Twitter simply remove the link from the character count, and thus obviate the need for shortening at all.

By: Sanjay Maharaj

Sanjay Maharaj — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:48:23 +0000

I am suprised why people would complain about this and other services Twitter is consolidating and bringing under its wings, for Twitter to prosper and establish a credible business model, it needs to do these kinds of things

By: Twitter Places: to check-in or not to check-in?

Twitter Places: to check-in or not to check-in? — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:46:07 +0000

[...] Twitter Under Fire for Link-shortening Service Plans [...]

By: Letsgosocial.nl » Blog Archive » Linkverkorter Twitter oogst kritiek

Letsgosocial.nl » Blog Archive » Linkverkorter Twitter oogst kritiek — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 15:41:16 +0000

[...] het artikel op Gigaom. AKPC_IDS += [...]

By: Bhupendra

Bhupendra — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:32:14 +0000

I feel, this is a forced step taken by Twitter to make it neutral service. There was no necessity for Facebook to launch fb.me, same for Google to launch goo.gl.

The aim of Facebook and Google to launch their own shorteners is to take control of the twitter traffic generated using their service. There can be no other reason.

Twitter should not have any issue with neutral shorteners like Bit.ly, Tinyurl.com, nxy.in etc, but any big internet company would not want to lose its control to its major competitors. Now Twitter is no longer a small start-up but a giant in itself; it will take every possible step to fend itself from its competitors. This might just be the start.

By: Amit Seth

Amit Seth — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 01:35:35 +0000

Will the following solution work?

A link is/should be a part of the meta data about a tweet. This is the same as the location of a tweet, which is not textually exposed in the 140 characters. A tweet without a link would have a null URL and a linking URL would be hyperlinked from the entire tweet. This eliminates URL shorteners completely and frees up more space for the core message.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:32:29 +0000

Agreed, Edwin -- thanks for the comment.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:31:10 +0000

Yes, that's a good point -- whenever I try to copy a link from the search results page, I just get a long Google link filled with gobbledygook.