I had totally forgotten about longurl.com; and now I wonder whether we should maybe use it, as:
* it will follow multiple redirects (with a single HTTP request from the phone, which is good for your data plan; this is great for t.co links that point to a bit.ly, goo.gl or ow.ly link; e.g. http://longurl.org/expand?url=http://t.co/bBR3lDozez)
* also works for URLs that are not part of their services list (e.g. instagr.am, example: http://api.longurl.org/v2/expand?url=http://instagr.am/p/W9mktanI0_/)
* returns a very small payload (again, good for your data plan; note we could save some bytes with our `HTTPUrlConnection` by using `setRequestMethod("HEAD")`)