StumbleUpon is preparing to launch a shortURL service (a web service that provides short aliases for redirection of long URLs, like TinyURL or Bit.ly) in the next couple of weeks called su.pr.

Founder Garrett Camp announced the new service on Twitter without any description of what it might be on March 3. In an email exchange he says it will be a shortURL service to share StumbleUpon links on sites like Twitter and Facebook and that it will be launched in a week or two. The site currently redirects to StumbleUpon.

Digg is planning its own similar service, which we covered late last month.

Digg’s service will show additional information, like total traffic to the link, in a Digg “toolbar” wrapper, and users can easily create links by simply adding digg.com/ before any URL (the short URL will then be created and shown. I don’t have any information on exactly what StumbleUpon is planning, but it’s a safe guess it’ll have similar features, and it may actually launch before Digg.

The benefit to StumbleUpon and Digg to these services is traffic when people click on the short URLs. People add a lot on links on Twitter posts but space constraints (140 characters per post) require short URLs.

Thanks Paul for the tip.