Twitter Breaks Links

Why does twitter shorten the link on posts where link doesn't need to be shortened?



I used bit.ly to make a decriptive link, and twitter changed it from http://bit.ly/BlameDrewDatehMusic to http://bit.ly/BlameDrewDate....

The link still works when you are on twitter, but when someone copies the link manually and then retweets it, the link breaks.

Details:

Twitter changed the link on my post, from this:

Blame Drew's Cancer: The Music Video by Paul Dateh http://bit.ly/BlameDrewDatehMusic #blamedrewscancer

To this:

Blame Drew's Cancer: The Music Video by Paul Dateh http://bit.ly/BlameDrewDate... #blamedrewscancer

On twitter, the link works, until someone retweets it, by copying and pasting the tweet into a new post, then it breaks.

Broken link:

melissapierce RT @stevegarfield: Blame Drew's Cancer: The Music Video by Paul Dateh http://bit.ly/BlameDrewDate.. #blamedrewscancer i know amazing ppl

I blame Drews Cancer

Update:

Example #2:

Original post:

stevegarfield#blamedrewscancer Music Video http://bit.ly/BlameDrewDatehMusic

Twitter shortened:

stevegarfield#blamedrewscancer Music Video http://bit.ly/BlameDrewDate...

Note: This shortend link works at twitter.com, but will break if someone manually copies and pastes it to retweet it.

Example #3:
Original post:

stevegarfield#blamedrewscancer Music Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHDiurJY3lg

Twitter shortened:

stevegarfield#blamedrewscancer Music Video http://bit.ly/nSFfW

I don't understand why twitter feels the need to shorten that YouTube link. and note the shortened URL, nSFfW. Weird.

I know twitter is working on incorporating the retweet function. I hope they makes things better and not worse. I also hope that when retweeting, we'll be able to add editorial comments to retweets.

Labels: blamedrewscancer

posted by Steve at 8:39 AM | link | (2) Join the Discussion

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