pageoneresults - 2:14 pm on Apr 15, 2009 (gmt 0)

The worst part is that Twitter automatically converts addresses to a shortened version even when the full address fits within the character limit. Why? What's the point of that?

That would be a misnomer. Those who have watched me on Twitter will tell you that the 30 character limit for URIs is not correct. In fact, I've been able to get a 76 character URI to non convert. I'd say that 99% of my Tweets now contain unconverted URIs if the destination URI is less than 70 characters and doesn't contain any funky separators like underscores. URIs with underscores have a 98% conversion rate, the damn things just won't work. ;)

I put out a public proposal at the beginning of March for Twitter to do their own shortening. They use TinyURL which is 7 characters and Twitter is 7 characters. I never quite understood why Twitter would not have done their own as they would have surely kept some brand identity for themselves. I think Digg read that and ran with it. :)

URI Shortening Services are on their way out. They are bad for the Internet and all things marketing. I guess we have the creator of Title Slugs to thank for many of the URIs out there that can't be sent without conversion. Smart move!