The system was launched to address the increasingly popular situation where a user wishes to send a text, IM, tweet, email or other similar message which includes an internet address (URL). Typically these are long and cumbersome to use on handsets, and can even cost more money than need be, for example in the case of texts exceeding their single-message character limit.

Already the system has been adopted by the mobile community - the popular Android handset application "URLShortener" includes ota.cc in its approved list of URL shortening services.

The service is very simple to use. Lets say I wanted to text someone an interesting article regarding President Obamas election: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7707667.stm. I would now not have to enter that long address on my handset. Instead, I would visit http://www.ota.cc, paste that address into the URL box, click "Shorten" and out comes ota.cc/U. I can then just send that address instead. If by chance someone else enters the long address, the system is smart enough to spot the duplicate and return the shortened one it created first time. ota.cc also allows a custom alias, so you can suggest a memorable suffix rather than let the system "roll a dice" for the last part of the generated address, but this is on a first-come-first-served basis.