Twitter Question

[GFPC]

I notice how many twitter accounts use Tiny URL or some kind of service like that to submit their tweets. Is there a reason for this?

Why cant you use a normal link? Rather than a shortened link ?

Is it bad to do one or the other? Whats better?

Steve

[pomp]

Because the tweets are limited to 140 fonts a tiny url uses less

[Turtleknife]

You can use a full URL in twitter, but that would just take up way too much of your 140 characters.

There's also another benefit some services such as bit.Ly, owl.ly, and su.pr offer analytics information that tracks data such as how many clicks, when I click happened, and from what region of the planet came from. If you use a shortening service like su.pr, it also helps to spread amongst other users of StumbleUpon.

[GFPC]

Ahh thanks guys!! I know there was a reason :-) Well when you say 140 characters - there are many urls that are not 140 characters.

Like homepages or certain sections of your website. Maybe only 60-70 characters.

140 is alot no?

[kushmoney]

You want a url in your tweet less than 15 characters to give you space to write your tweet and add your hash tags. If you had a link 60 characters then you have very little room to write your tweet.

[pomp]

The 140 fonts is for total tweet inc url

[TheShortStack]

... to write your tweet and add your hash tags.

Right, seeing as you've brought this up in a "Twitter Question" thread, I need to ask: what are these hash tags and how do they help?

[Turtleknife]

Hashtags help Twitter search identify popular terms within the network, that in turn help create groups, improved metadata searches, and targeted Tweets. For example if I were to comment on how fckd up windows VISTA is for me, I would write a Tweet like:

Can somebody help me with yet another #vista problem I am having?

With the hashtag included, Microsoft and anybody following that hashtag would instantly recognize it as being their circle of interest, and respond, file, or whatever they want to do with it. It just helps to clarify terms and searches on Twitter.

[GFPC]

Oh thanks guys!! Much appreciated!! I fully grasp it now!! Your all the best.

Cheers