Let's say you've got a favorite photo on virb...

Candace by Bummer City Photography

...and you'd like to share that photo with your followers on twitter. Unfortunately, that photo's url is 34 characters long and your accompanying message is 110, putting you just over the 140 character limit on twitter. What to do?

A) Existing short url services
You could use one of the existing url shorteners like tr.im or bit.ly. They'll knock that character count down to about 10-13. Sweet! However, those services (as well as most others) don't really give any idea as to where that link is going. It's a blind click.

B) Virb's short urls
Give virb's short urls a try! In the "Details" area of every entry on virb (photos, links, videos, etc), you'll find a short url for use on twitter (and any other service you decide to use it on). In the case of the photo mentioned earlier, the url virb.com/bummercity/photos/4476116 now becomes virb.com/p/4476116. Your original 34 character url is now 18 characters, with the added bonus of everyone knowing where the link is going! Not only that, but the /p/ tells them it's going to a photo page. Other slugs include /v/ for video, /a/ for audio and /t/ for text (links, status, posts, quotes).

Enjoy!

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Posted by Josh