Do a couple of characters really make a difference in a 140 character limit scenario?
Apparently, bit.ly certainly seems to think so. They have launched a new service j.mp which, hold your breath reduces a whole 2 characters from your shortened url.
The service shows the same metrics and history as bit.ly, and the same user accounts would work in j.mp too. One can even interchange their bit.ly url with the j.mp service. For eg., you can access this post either with http://j.mp/o3PzZ or as http://bit.ly/o3PzZ .
Great! Now all we need is a shortner for that offending “http://” …