Social networking site Twitter announced Thursday morning that it will launch its own URL-shortening service, and start tracking how individual users use the web.
Millions of Twitter users woke up on Thursday morning to a personalized email from the micro-blogging website.
While also making changes to the way users' passwords are handled, Twitter also announced the formation of a new URL shortening service that they've dubbed t.co. Set to compete directly with other URL-shortening services like tiny.url and bit.ly, t.co will allow twitter users to compress extremely long web links into shorter, easily sent packages. 
It's also going to be more secure.
| "When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and we then will forward you on to the destination URL," the email reads. |
Twitter also said that it will start tracking which sites users access through the t.co clicks, and use the data to "provide better and more relevant content to you over time."
The move is likely another attempt by the social networking site to boost its revenue stream, as the company is often criticized for not having a solid business model.
