Prepare to be extra pithy! Twitter to subtract 2 characters for tweets with links

Time to brush up on your shorthand, because come February, you’re going to have two less characters to tweet with when you share links on Twitter.

The information network announced yesterday in a developer blog post that it was extending the maximum length of t.co wrapped links (Twitter shortens your long, original URLs to t.co URLs) from 20 to 22 characters for non-https URLs, and from 21 to 23 characters for https URLs.

What this boils down to is two fewer characters to use when you’re sharing links on the service. It may sound like a small adjustment, but most avid users already feel the pinch when trying to squeeze in their commentary. The change will certainly make for some chopped-off thoughts and even less intelligible quips.

When reached for comment, a Twitter spokesperson declined to provide specific reasons for increasing the length of t.co URLs, expect to say that “we made this change for a variety of reasons.”

Twitter posted the note yesterday to give third-party developers ample time to update their applications. The official launch is scheduled for February 20, 2013.

Feel free to share this story on Twitter and express your disapproval for the change with those two extra characters while you can.

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