By Jessica Guynn
| First Twitter shortened how we communicate, muzzling
the long-winded on its popular Web service. Now it’s cutting down on all
those extra characters in our URLs, too.

As Twitter put it: “Length shouldn’t matter.” At least when it comes to
Web links.

Twitter is testing internally a new service called t.co that will be
available to all users this summer. It will automatically shorten links,
the San Francisco company announced on its blog Tuesday.

The service will work if you are using Twitter on the website or if you
are on a third-party service. But if you are on a computer rather than
mobile phone, you will see the entire link. That way you will know what
you are clicking on before you click, removing some of the “obscurity,”
the post said. The number of characters in the shortened link still
count toward the 140-character limit.

Twitter says the service
should help in its fight against spam. It could also set the stage for
Twitter to offer analytics, the way other shortener services such as
Bit.ly do. Because Twitter will be tracking the links (in aggregate, not
in a personally identifiable way), TechCrunch also points out that
Twitter may be looking at content recommendation, basically suggesting
content based on what kinds of information you like to consume.

In
March, Twitter began routing direct messages through a new shortening
service to prevent phishing and malware. It confirmed in April that it
would launch a shortening service for its users.

Even though
this move was expected, it can’t be welcome news for companies like
Bit.ly that make URL shorteners. Of course, Bit.ly also offers
corporations analytics and custom domains to go along with the
shorteners. So it’s not clear that this latest move, one in a series
that have shaken up the start-ups that have built their businesses on
Twitter, will cut short their life span.