Twitter adds a link shortener

SHORT MESSAGING service Twitter has added a link shortening feature.

The social notworking web site has been missing this feature ever since it launched and, although many third party providers have stepped up to fill the void, some users have preferred the idea of staying within the Twitter environment and just posted shorter messages instead.

"We've been working on a bunch of features to make Twitter easier to use. Today, we're releasing something that many of you have been asking for - automatic link shortening on Twitter.com," wrote the outfit in a blog post.

The good news is that it should happen automatically, except that it did not when we tried. Fear not, according to Twitter, as all you need do is, "Just paste a link of any length into the Tweet box on Twitter.com. After you've composed your Tweet and you hit the 'Tweet' button, we'll shorten the link so that it only takes up 19 characters."

We'll try again later. In the meantime the change should make things a little more secure thanks to the transparency of links. "Since we show a shortened version of the original link, people will know which site the link points to," added the firm.

"This service also increases security. If users click links that are reported as malicious, we direct them to a page that warns them." µ