Bit.ly Plans to Strengthen the Skeleton of the Social Web With Verisign Partnership
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/bitly_verisign_partnership_social_web.php
Bit.ly redirects as many as 8 billion of those links in a given month. To help further strengthen the reliability of its shortened URLs, Bit.ly is going right to the root of the Web's infrastructure.
I wouldn't exactly say this is *strengthening* the skeleton.