I don’t know how many of you noticed it. Google has recently introduced its own url-shortening service. But it is not a standalone service right now. You can use it only from Google Toolbar & more importantly we, bloggers can use it in FeedBurner service. So I was checking what functionality has been added to my FeedBurner account. And I just saw Google has added option to socialize your feed automatically with Twitter with the new url shortening service. From your FeedBurner dashboard go to your feed & then click “Publicize” tab. There you will find “Socialize” option. Add your Twitter account there giving your Twitter usename & password. Change options  to set what part of your feed that you want to show in your Twitter upadates like blog post title only, post body only or both title and post body.

It is similar to free services like TwitterFeed that I am currently using. But then you don’t have to rely on third-party url shortening services like tiniURL, bit.ly etc. You can manage whole thing from one single Google FeedBurner account. Besides, one main feature of Google’s own url shortening service is to enhance security. So, as in Google web search, if Google finds out that your http://goo.gl url is redirecting to a malicious url that can harm a computer it will show warning to the user. That means new users will have less fear clicking on the feed link in Twitter. So it may be easier to attract some new clicks.

I am thinking of moving to FeedBurner automatic Twitter update service for my blog. But I am having trouble accessing my TwitterFeed account using my OpenId. I will have to contact them & turn the feed off for Twitter there. Can’t serve double Twitter updates for a single blog post update