If I were writing a popular URL shortener, the most useful thing I could add would be short (2 character) prefix to the random link, indicating the target type (e.g. video is foo.bla/vd12345). This fixes a pet peeve of mine, when I follow an Mobile Safari link to Youtube on an EDGE network, causing an application shift. Also, 95% of videos on the web these days are better rendered in text, and I just want to ignore them.

Interesting article. To solve the security issue he mentions, I started trying out various twitter clients. I ended up using Nambu for Mac OS X. Mouse over a link gives you the real URL, if it has one. Personally, the extra latency that comes from using URL shortening services doesn't bother me, but the thought that the service might disappear does.

I've said it a million times and I'll say it again:

Replace all urls with a "link" enclosed on an <A> tag

  <a href="realurl">LINK</a>

No need to reinvent the wheel, it's been there since the dawn of the web.

exactly, just you have to keep in mind that you can't allow html posts, while the links should also be able to have the names. I think RedCloth notation for link will do "title":http://link.com if in need for a link name, but if not, then definitively you need to shorten the links somehow.. You don't want the whole screen of a cell phone covered in a single link?

The word LINK only takes 4 chars in every cellphone in the world. What's underneath the link (the url) is only available to html readers.

And the users DO NOT submit link titles, they submit urls (which are not part of the 140 limit, only 4 chars for 'link') and urls are recognized as such an replaced by the word LINK.

* users still not allowed to post html.

sure thing. but you have an issue with two links. See, you have to have a mean of identifying links, and that is why there should be ability to either add custom title or fetch real page title.

Not necessarily, take a look at both examples:

- I saw an iphone clone at httq://tinyurl.com/blahblah here is the pic httq://twitpic.com/blahblah compare it to this httq://tinyurl.com/moreblah

- I saw an iphone clone at LINK here is the pic LINK compare it to this LINK

See? more room for cleaner, longer messages.

Cellphones get the LINK word, browsers get the clickable LINK

but cellphones may get half of the message only, as it is limited to 140 chars.

No, the message is still limited to 140 chars, for cellphones or browsers, the link handling is done behind doors.

So where does the phone get the URL, another message?

Phones don't get the url, just the LINK placeholder, you can not navigate on a cellphone.

Now, smartphones, they use browsers, browsers can read html, then they get the url under the LINK placeholder.