by: 
04/27/2011
Don’t waste twitter space pasting whole links into your messages — econ.omize!
You can say a lot with only 140 characters, but you don’t want to be wasting valuable space on links, so what can you do?
Luckily, shortening URLs using bit.ly is the easiest thing in the world to do. And as an added bonus, it keeps track of how many people actually clicked your link, as well as other more advanced features.
It should also be mentioned that URL shorteners make your tweets look uniform & elegant.
This quick tutorial should help get you started:
If for some reason you don’t like bit.ly try a couple other URL shorteners, also commonly used:
http://tinyurl.com/
http://is.gd/
[...] Bit.ly is a service that automatically shortens link URLs. All you need to do is copy and paste them in, it happens almost instantly. I keep Bit.ly open in my browser at all times. It’s that convenient. Shortening link URLs keeps your Tweets looking uniform and elegant. Read our previous article– ‘The Importance of URL Shorteners.’ [...]