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I’m not going to lie. A giant pet peeve of mine is when I tweet something and someone replies who clearly did not visit the link I included.
As it turns out, the spammers are counting on you to not read the links too.
The New York Times Bits Blog is reporting an increase in spammers using URL shortening services. So here are some tips on how to avoid the joy spam websites bring to your computer:
1. Click the link before you re-tweet. If it is spam, close your browser and run CCleaner and Spyboy Search & Destroy.
2. If the link did include spam, follow our steps on how to deal with Twitter spam (unfollow, block, and report to @Spam).
3. Use Bit.ly. Twitter is integrated with them (and will probably buy them at some point). You won’t make enough money to justify using Adjix, and the other services have those stupid i-frames that show up at the top of the screen. Both are annoying. Don’t do that to your friends.
4. Bonus Tip: If you use Friendfeed to follow your Twitter friends, they unravel Bit.ly URLs and show you where the link actually goes, providing you with a spam free existence (not to mention an archive of all of your tweets and your friends tweets.)
5. Not hip to Friendfeed? Ok. Well then CNet reports that you can use Long URL Please and Shorttext.com to decode short URLs. PC Magazine suggests you use Untiny and TinyURL decoder.
But none of them give you an archive like Friendfeed. Just saying.
