There are several link-shortening applications (tinyurl, budurl, and bit.ly) available for microblogging (blogging in a limited number of characters, like Twitter).
One of the applications I use is bit.ly, and I did a Social Media Spotlight about it, because it allows the tracking and analysis of all the links you shorten with the application.
Well, then I discovered the WordPress plugin Pretty Link while looking for a plugin to do something totally different. It also allows for tracking and analysis of links, but I like it because it allows me to create short URLs with my own domain, which itself is a pretty short URL (myqotd.com) 
.
The following information is from the developer’s site:
Features
- Gives you the ability to create clean, simple URLs on your website that redirect to any other URL
- Generates random 2-3 character slugs for your URL or allows you to name a custom slug for your URL
- Tracks the Number of Hits per link
- Tracks the Number of Unique Hits per link
- Provides a reporting interface where you can see a configurable chart of clicks per day. This report can be filtered by the specific link clicked, date range, and/or unique clicks.
- View click details including ip address, remote host, browser (including browser version), operating system, and referring site
- Download hit details in CSV format
- Intuitive Javascript / AJAX Admin User Interface
- Pass custom parameters to your scripts through pretty link and still have full tracking ability
- Ability to rewrite these custom Parameters before forwarding to Target URL
- Setup Pretty Links as Tracking Pixels and track impressions
- Exclude IP Addresses from Stats
- Enables you to post your Pretty Links to Twitter directly from your WordPress admin
- Enables you to send your Pretty Links via Email directly from your WordPress admin
- Select Temporary (307) or Permanent (301) redirection for your Pretty Links
- Cookie based system for tracking visitor activity across hits
- Organize Links into Groups
- Create nofollow/noindex links
- Turn tracking on / off on each link
- Keep users on your site even when being redirected by using the PrettyBar which stays at the top of the page
- Configure the PrettyBar to mirror the look and feel of your website
Great things you can do with Pretty Link
- Clean up / mask affiliate links or merchant shopping cart links
- Track the effectiveness of email campaigns by embedding Pretty Links in your emails
- See how many times an email is opened by creating a “Tracking Pixel” Pretty Link and embedding it in the email
- Kickstart and Fuel the SEO on your site by posting Pretty Links from your site on Digg, Twitter, Facebook, other blogs and everywhere else on the Internet.
- Create Pretty Links for private special offers (to your email list) using a randomized slug to prevent the URL from being “guessed”
- Write custom scripts in PHP, Ruby on Rails, ASP or anything else that accept parameters and use Pretty Link to make their URLs “pretty” and forward on the parameters
- Setup pretty links for your zip, pdf & binary files and track how many times they are downloaded
- Use to track results of your PPC campaigns by setting your ads to go to Pretty Links
- Track Everything!
There’s also a Pretty Link Pro for which you can pay a fee to gain more features.
Let me know if you upload Pretty Link to your blog and how it works for you!
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