Shortening links on Twitter is a matter of necessity, to allow us to be as verbose as possible while conserving those precious 140 characters. Using a link shortening tool is something most of us never give a second thought to.

But when you see how much great information you can glean from these shortened links, you may change your tune.

Consider this very cool (and free) tool from bit.ly which allows you to source information like who’s talking about your website or blog, where they’re talking about it and what’s being said. It’s easy to install and almost easier to use.

Just drag the link to your web browsers tool bar.

Then visit a webpage you want stats on and open the bit.ly side bar. Presto! Instant info (Interesting side note – this works on all webpages - even your competitors - so it would be pretty easy to see if someone else is being successful at something and why).

Having played around with this for a short while the tool seems pretty robust. On top of monitoring web conversations, you can also auto-post to a few social networks including Twitter (of course) and Facebook.