If you've been a Twitter fan for quite sometime now, then you must as of now know about the updates (Twitter Applications and OAuth) that they announced recently about Twitter Apps and URL wrapping. Just in case you missed these updates for Twitter Apps, let me tell you about it.

We all know that there are thousands of applications built using the Twitter API, right? They come in different varieties, including desktop applications, websites or Well, the first update has involves the authorization rules for these applications:

The first update: Changes to how users allow third-party Twitter applications.

Applications will start to utilize OAuth to access Twitter accounts. This Twitter Applications and OAuth update is intended to make applications more secure and centralized.

OAuth enables Twitter applications to access users' accounts without directly asking for, or storing, their passwords. Twitter says that desktop and mobile apps might ask for a password once after this app changes is up, but will not need it again. We can see a list of all authorized applications under the "Connections" setting in our Twitter account.

According to Twitter, what this means for us is:

Applications are no longer allowed to store your password.

The applications will continue to work if you change your password.

Some applications you have been using may require you to reauthorize them or may stop functioning at the time of this change.

All applications you have allowed will be listed at http://twitter.com/settings/connections.

You can revoke access to any application at any time from the list.

To learn more about Oauth, visit the Twitter blog http://blog.twitter.com/2010/08/twitter-applications-and-oauth.html.

The second update: Making URLs more convenient for users wanting to share links.

Many Twitter users use bit.ly to shorten URLs. There's also ow.ly in Hootsuite, but Twitter is expanding its own URL wrapping service -- t.co. Links shortened using this will still show the domain and part of the URL so that users know what they are clicking on, and the great thing about this is that users will be immediately routed through Twitter's malware checker before being processed on to the link itself!

These changes for Twitter applications will be slowly rolled out for some users over the next few weeks, and should be ready for use by the end of the year.

What do you think of Twitter's new updates?