This post explores the phenomenon of URL shorteners, discusses the potential impact of the recent announcement by Twitter (a favorite site of mine) to rewrite a

This post explores the phenomenon of URL shorteners, discusses the potential impact of the recent announcement by Twitter (a favorite site of mine) to rewrite all links shared through the service, and makes a few specific recommendations on how to improve on these implementations. What a god-awful way to start a post. Nothing of interest to hook the mind. What is a URL shortener? You've all seen short URLs before — the links to tinyurl.com, bit.ly, wp.me, etc., recently popularized as a workaround to fit more content into smaller spaces, most notably within Twitter's 140 character limits. URL shorteners work by taking any arbitrary URL (which can contain hundreds of characters or more) and creating a new URL, typically only a handful of characters plus the short domain name, and returning a 301 or a 302 HTTP response code that redirects the browser from the short URL to the original. More factual pointlessness. There is nothing whatsoever that is interesting in that second paragraph. scrolls down 3.5 thousand words written in that style? No thanks. Writing is designed to be read by people. If you have a point, present it digestibly or keep it to yourself.