In this era of people using Twitter for messaging and networking, the 140 character limit has caused an explosion in making web site URLs shorter. Google has now made that process a bit easier for its various products. Today the company announced that it has acquired the web site domain g.co. It will apparently be a companion to the goo.gl web site which was launched by Google in 2009 and shortens the URL of any web site that is typed into its selection box.
According to , "We’ll only use g.co to send you to webpages that are owned by Google, and only we can create g.co shortcuts. That means you can visit a g.co shortcut confident you will always end up at a page for a Google product or service." He added that the goo.gl web shortener site "will continue to be our public URL shortener that anybody can use to shorten URLs across the web."
The .co domain name address is actually owned by the country of Colombia but more and more outside organizations and businesses are now purchasing the rights to use the .co name from Colombia for their own products. In a Reuters article last month, it was revealed that Colombia had signed up one million customers to use the .co domain name since the country allowed access to the domain a year ago. Twitter, Amazon and others have purchased rights to shortened URLs with the .co domain. There"s no word on how much money Google paid for its new g.co domain.