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I have a Twitter account where I have a contractor posting tweets, and I don't want to give the actual Twitter password. I can set up Hootsuite or Buffer so the contractor can post tweets without knowing the Twitter password because they instead know just the Hootsuite or Buffer details, and those accounts I've previously connected to Twitter. But those services use non-t.co shorteners (ow.ly and buff.ly, respectively). Hootsuite does support t.co if you include the full URL, but then it gets the character count wrong (it doesn't take into account that the link will be shortened).

So my question is, are there any other third-party tweeting services which (a) have their own login mechanism, so the twitter password doesn't have to be given out; (b) support t.co links; (c) get the character count right, i.e. take into account that longer links will be shortened by twitter.

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all links, no matter what, get wrapped by t.co. The client may show the t.co URL or the full URL, but they're all wrapped by twitter API. –  Sathya Sep 7 '12 at 9:26
I realise that, but I'm looking for a service that doesn't use its own shortener first, because when clients unwrap the t.co (which many do, including twitter.com), I want it to show the full URL, not a shortened one. –  mahemoff Sep 7 '12 at 13:49
And the client needs to be aware it will be shortened by t.co, so it can show a proper character length. –  mahemoff Sep 7 '12 at 13:49
I'd ask you to check tweetdeck then. It's got pretty much what you're asking for –  Sathya Sep 7 '12 at 14:10
I use tweetdeck all the time, the problem is it requires the actual password, so can't be used by proxy. –  mahemoff Sep 7 '12 at 15:48
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up vote 1 down vote accepted

As I had mentioned in the comments, Tweetdeck will work fine. It uses its own Authentication, but that's to store settings & sync across multiple devices. All Twitter apps must make use of oAuth, so once authenticated, you probably won't have to login to Twitter.

And the web client shows the expanded URL, doesn't use its own URL shortener so it'll be fine.

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This answer doesn't make any sense. When you add a new account, it specifically asks you for the username & password to sign into Twitter. How can you give that info out to allow people to add the company account? Once you give out the password, someone could just go directly to Twitter and change the password. Imgur –  Chloe Feb 17 at 20:47
@Chloe this answer was posted before Tweetdeck was acquired by twitter. There was a separate Tweetdeck account you could login & pass the credentials to whoever was operating, whithout giving details of the twitter account. That method still works for old Tweetdeck accounts, just that new accounts can't be registered –  Sathya Feb 19 at 4:51
Cool. I got around it by creating a throwaway account and pre-authorizing the real account. Then I can give out the password to the throwaway account and it doesn't matter if it's hacked (except for possible spam). –  Chloe Feb 19 at 5:02
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