URL shrinking services extremely handy for social networking

Social networking is resulting in the number of services, which help users convert long URLs into small Web links. URL shrinking services are useful on sites like Twitter, limiting tweets to 140 characters.

There are several URL shortening services that are available today. However, few online communities have made it easier for people to tell where the shortened links will take them. Also, the lack of a standardized or built-in approach to URL shortening services - within individual social networking websites - only adds to the complexity.

For instance, many Twitter users opt to shorten long Web links with bit.ly, but some Twitter users are also likely to see Tweets with links shortened by the services at tr.im and ow.ly. While bit.ly offers a Firefox add-on, which lets users of that browser view a portion of the longer URL at least, there is no other easy way of viewing the long version of links at either tr.im or ow.ly.

Many URL shortening services allow their own users to preview shortened links, whereas a few others don't offer that option. There are several websites you can use to view a long URL just by cutting and pasting a shortened link like longurl.org.
TinyURL is among the longest-running services for URL shortening.

It lets users preview all shortened URLs. For those browsing the Web with Firefox, an add-on called Long URL Please is recommended. It also works in other browsers like Internet Explorer. Expandmyurl.com is another approach, which works well across browsers.