According to a post by Allen Stern over at CenterNetworks, Twitter is once again tracking link data.  Given the status of our server, I’m unable to link back to my idea for Twitter to create between $500 million and $1.5 billion in yearly revenue, but the upshot of the plan entailed them doing something very similar to that.

The scoop as to what’s exactly happening, according to Allen:

So if you click a link to CN, click a friend’s profile or click a link over to one of the third party apps, Twitter is tracking it.

The links appear normal to the naked eye but when clicked they morph to something like this:

http://twitter.com/link_click_count?url

From my previous post, “It does not look like third party apps (HootSuite, Tweetdeck, Sobees, etc.) are affected by this link tracking change. Frankly tracking links without tracking the third party apps seems silly as apparently the hardcore Twitter users use some application with the service.”

This would be my assessment, as well.

This is a step in the right direction, and possibly even a step towards Twitter-framed content. Given the overwhelming volume of usage of third-party apps, though, this move isn’t likely to accomplish much long term, other than to provide broad data on click-trends.

It could be a baby-step towards full on link shortening and content framing by Twitter, though. Phasing something like this in incrementally is a good way to load-test new services, something Twitter is probably pretty mindful of, given their history of pushing the boundaries and terminology of downtime.