At first glance, it doesn't seem like a big deal. A service that shortens URLs isn't exactly a moneymaking behemoth, and frankly, there's no, ahem, shortage of similar offerings out there -- bit.ly and TinyURL among them -- to help users shorten URLs for better consumption through e-mail, Twitter and other forms of e-messaging.

But what happens to thousands upon thousands of Tr.im links out there once Tr.im is no more? Are all those saved Tweets, text messages and URL-shortened e-mail embeds suddenly worthless?

For the moment, no. According to Nambu Network, Tr.im will support URL redirection through the end of 2009. After that, however, all bets are off.

From a practical point of view, it stands to reason that most links may not be quite so valuable or interesting many months after their initial creation. That cute kitty meme, manipulated picture, or astute analysis of a political gaffe just don't resonate quite so much when revisited months down the line, do they?

Well, if e-mail, text messaging and social networking giants like Facebook and Twitter have helped make communication a series of comfortably shortened links, imagine the dead-ends, breakdowns and at the very least, annoyances, if and when all those Tr.im links are suddenly voided.

And all that's to say nothing of the security issues link-shortening services create, and may leave lingering if those services suddenly disappear but leave links intact. (Everything Channel's Ed Moltzen takes up that discussion in the Channelweb.com Community.)

What should Twitter's role in all of it be? Representatives from Tr.im parent company Nambu Network have made no bones about their thoughts on Twitter's role in marginalizing Tr.im, thanks to how Twitter points tweets to bit.ly.

"Twitter has all but sapped us of any last energy to double-down and develop tr.im further," wrote representatives from Nambu in the blog post that announced Tr.im's shuttering. "What is the point? With bit.ly the Twitter default and with us having no inside connection to Twitter, tr.im will lose over the long-run no matter how good it may or may not be at this moment, or in the future."

If at first glance the post seems like sour grapes over not being Twitter's weapon of choice, Nambu gets at a valid point: shouldn't Twitter be more embracing of other link-shortening services, or at least be leading the charge on how to manage the preservation of links so that if link services like Tr.im go the way of the dodo, the damage is minimal?