TinyURL was running quite slow, so we temporarily disabled our automatic shortening of long URLs.
We're currently working on a project to make the shortening of URLs more consistent and predictable. We know it's currently kind of a guessing game as to what will be shortened, and we want to fix that. On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 22:20, bcballard <[email protected]> wrote: > > I use the Twitter API to post article titles followed by a link to the > article, and sometimes a repeat of the domain name if I think Twitter > is going to tinyurl me. Generaly Twitter converts URLs with characters > it doesn't like [^A-Za-z0-9.:/], or URLs in tweets that are too long, > to tinyurls. > > However, this evening, none of the URLs I posted were converted to > tinyurls. Not even the ones with characters Twitter doesn't like, and > not the one that was too long. > > Here are the status updates I expected to be tinyurled, followed by a > link to the individual tweet as it appeared on Twitter. > > The first 3 contain bad characters (underscores or commas), but are > fewer than 140 chars: > > GA approves more charter schools > http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2009/04/01/georgia_charter_school.html > (ajc.com) > > http://twitter.com/GeorgiaLogCabin/status/1436345350 > > > Obama's tax pledge up in smoke > http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090401/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_tax_promise > (news.yahoo.com) > > http://twitter.com/GeorgiaLogCabin/status/1436192094 > > > Sweden recognizes marriage equality > http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25277939-12335,00.html > (theaustralian.news.com.au) > > http://twitter.com/GeorgiaLogCabin/status/1436147039 > > > This one has bad characters (dashes) and is longer than 140 chars: > > Obama wants anti-gay advisor > http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/03/31/exclusive-former-nfl-coach-tony-dungy-invited-to-join-white-house-faith-council.html > (usnews.com) > > http://twitter.com/GeorgiaLogCabin/status/1436319188 > > > That last one shows on http://twitter.com/GeorgiaLogCabin with a > truncated URL that causes it to link to a broken story. However, on > the individual Tweet link above, the URL is not truncated and works > fine... > > So I have one main question with a few possible answers: > > Q: What happened to Twitter's auto-tinyurl convert? > > Possible answers? > > A1: Tinyurl just happened to be down during the time I was posting > updates, so Twitter couldn't request tinyurls and used my long ones > (though other people's tweets before, during and after mine appear to > be tinyurled as normal.) > > A2: Twitter just this evening stopped tinyurl-ing my tweets, but not > anybody else's (at least not anyone I happen to follow.) > > A3: Some Twitter bug nobody's aware of (I searched the FAQs, this > message board, and via Google and didn't find anyone else with this > particular issue.) > > A4: Some other reason? > > Any ideas? > > > > > > -- Alex Payne - API Lead, Twitter, Inc. http://twitter.com/al3x
