Last year I complained about URL shorteners on Twitter, and proposed a solution. Today they announced that they’re adopting something similar:
All links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL. A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title.
My guess is that Twitter clients will just use the domain as the link text, but either way it’s a big win for usability and readability. Any suggestions on what domains I should punish on Unladen Follow?