I'm sure twitter has a list a thousand items long called "Stuff to do". We have at vzaar and it always grows quicker than it shrinks, so I'm sure Twitter has more important things to do.

However, I think their is a certain time sensitivity to these things, and they are roughly related and I think it would be a good thing for both Twitter and the ecosystem if they did.

URL shorteners (if you didn't know, I know you know) take a long messy url and ... um ... shorten it it a small tight nifty url. There's a good explanation here: The Benefits And Pitfalls of URL Shortener.

With Twitters recent rise to rule-the-worldom, URL shortners are both back (it used to just be TinyURL that did then, now everyone and their spambot has one). Of course this has brought a whole host of problems and highlighted all the issues with URL shortners.

A lot of this is Twitters fault in a way. It's the 140 character limit that requires the use of URL Shorteners. However the same reason means Twitter has a great opportunity to control and win the space, and control means you can extract the most value out of it.

Not only should Twitter create their own independent service, they should incorporate this into their API. This gets the app developers on board and it makes their life easier by just working with one API. I would imagine if the twitter website and most clients are using their url shortener, they'll quickly dominate the market on Twitter, and not far behind it too.

Controlling this market is useful. Because you know what's inside those urls. You also know what kind of click through they are getting (useful data to both Twitter and the users). You can also flag spam more easily (and we know this is going to be an bigger issue than it already is), and if you are flagging spam more easily, you can build up trust that Twitter URLS are safer, which they should be.

Many people are saying the value in Twitter is less in premier user services and more in the fact it's become a "real time search engine". If that's the case they need to know what's in those URLS and the best way to do it is bake it right in.

This also allows Twitter to expand the URLs in mediums where the 140 chars is less of an issue (at least on the web and in the API returns). This makes it more valuable to developers, and should have quick take up.

The use experience could be vastly improved. Just say we know any URL size is 25 chars long (the size of the Twitter web default of TinyURL. Then anytime someone enters a URL, you can just carry on typing to 115 chars. No need to worry about size limit. You can add on a feature that automatically shows all your Twitter URLs, and their click throughs on the twitter website (or via the API). I suspect this alone would kill all the competition.

So in summary

• There's knowledge in the URL
• Twitter could know the knowledge
• Knowledge has value
• Twitter is uniquely position to dominate this space

Twitpic is really just an extension of this. It's a specialised URL shortner for pictures. In fairness there is less knowledge in this that's of direct value, but I still think Twitter should bring this in house. Unlike a URL shortner I think Twitter should buy twitpic, rather than do their own.

AFAIK Noah Everett is running twitpic.com as a one man operation and has done a great job. He's built up his own little community and I think the goodwill would do a lot for Twitter buying this. He also has 1000000 pics plus on the service and is the biggest player in this space.

However the space is fracturing, and everyones trying to get in on it. Again Twitter can do interesting things here by controlling and dominating the space (especially with the API). Whilst I don't think they should expand the 140 character limit, they should realise people are posting pictures and a lot of them. Control the space before someone controls it for you.

An interesting thing here would be building in an automatic licensing system for the press or other people who want to use public pictures. Put all pictures on a creative common license and allow the press to use them if they pay a fee. Percentage of the free goes to the user and percentage to Twitter. Users can turn this off if they want.

Think of some of the great consolidated image feeds one could build of live events, from social (gigs, sports) to news (protests, planes landing in the Hudson).

In short:

Twitter, you should do your own url shortener and buy twitpic. Really you should. I'm smart and right, and it would make your service even more awesome.

Always happy to help.

[UPDATE: 2009.05.06]

Looks Like I'm not far off. Prediction: Twitter to acquire bit.ly within the year

TechCrunch - URL Shortening Wars: Twitter Ditches TinyURL For bit.ly

This is actually not that much of a surprise. Betaworks, the startup accelerator behind Twitter related companies such as Summize (acquired by Twitter in July 2008), is also behind bit.ly, and it just happens to also count early Twitter investors and advisors Chris Sacca and Ron Conway as their own backers.

Which obviously prompts this inevatible question: does the move signal Twitter paving the way for an outright acquisition of the URL shortening service provider?

ReadWriteWeb - Twitter Crowns Bit.ly As The King of Short Links; Here's What It Means

Once Bit.ly has been put to enough use, and today's news will likely be a big part of that happening, you'll be able to ask it questions like: within the last hour, what are the five hottest web pages about President Obama's budget? What social networks are sharing links to my web page the most today? What are ornithologists on Twitter most interested in this week?

The columns and rows here are semantic key terms on pages shared, method of sharing used (Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.), number of click-throughs, time and person who created the original shortcut. There's a whole lot you can do when you have that kind of information about a link. Bit.ly says its API isn't quite there yet, but it's close.