There are many URL shortening services. I just picked one (u.nu) to use from command line interface and chose something really quick and simple. Here’s the code:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
from urllib import urlencode
import httplib
import sys

api_url="u.nu"
var = urlencode({'url':sys.argv[1]})
args = "/unu-api-simple?%s" % (var)
conn = httplib.HTTPConnection(api_url)
conn.request("GET",args)
ret = conn.getresponse()
print ret.read()

Download the script here.

Just run passing the URL, for example:

$ python u.py www.coding.com.br

http://u.nu/72mpd

Easy your life by putting the script on your $PATH and execution (+x) file mode. Worth check the API from other services:

• bit.ly
• migre.me (brazilian company)
• is.gd
• tiny.cc
• tinyurl