Twitter announced today in a blog post that they will be making some changes to the way posting links to Twitter works. They declare that length shouldn't matter. In order to support that statement, Twitter has announced that links in tweets will no longer count against the 140-character limit. This was not announced in the main Twitter blog, but on a separate one. Additionally, they will be rolling out their own "t.co" URL shortener for links being displayed in certain formats.

Twitter is going to let developers decide which format of a link they'd like in their application. They explain:

When this is rolled out more broadly to users this summer, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL. A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title. Ultimately, we want to display links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened link and lets you know where a link will take you.

The developer will decide which of the formats that Twitter has provided that they would like to include in their client or application. Twitter eventually wants all links to be "wrapped up" in some way, but will begin this simplification of links with just some Twitter employees and then roll it out to the entire user base. Also, if you would like to stick to URL shorteners such as bit.ly, you can do so and still receive clicks and analytics, but the bit.ly (or other link) will still be wrapped up.