Late to Twitter? Brands may be out of luck
A few months back, I made a pleasant discovery: The popular social site Twitter would release inactive user names if you asked them to. This was great news for brands (and anyone else) who showed up late to the microblogging party and found their preferred name already taken. Sure enough, I made a request for a name that hadn't been used in two years and got it without a hitch. But now Twitter has decided to stop granting almost all similar requests. "Due to high ticket volume, Twitter Support is no longer releasing inactive user names unless in cases of trademark or copyright violation," an automated e-mail response told me when I requested another long-unused name this week. "We are working on releasing all inactive user names in the future, however, we will no longer manually release them on an individual basis." While I understand the reasoning, it's a shame that Twitter has left users (and potential users) in an awkward purgatory by refusing to release individual names or delete all inactive accounts. Brand-name stewards might still have a chance if they can argue "trademark or copyright violation." So, if you're lucky, you could get maliciously brandjacked, and then Twitter might listen to you. —Posted by David Griner |
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January 29, 2009 in Griner, Social networks, Twitter | Permalink |
Comments
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Yes it might be harmful for twitter marketing campaign , cause people can think that " there are much sleeping inside twitter"
Posted by: David | Jan 29, 2009 12:24:18 PM
That is an outright shame IMO. If, at some point, Twitter is looking to partner with brands (revenue, hello?) then a policy on how they're going to resolve these issues is long overdue.
Posted by: David Binkowski | Feb 2, 2009 3:48:50 PM
I wrote a quick tool that will tell you when twitter has deleted the name you want so you can register it yourself:
Once twitter resumes auto-deleting inactive names, it will email you when your desired name is available.
Posted by: drew | Jun 22, 2009 6:16:19 PM
I wrote a quick tool that will tell you when twitter has deleted the name you want so you can register it yourself:
Once twitter resumes auto-deleting inactive names, it will email you when your desired name is available.
Posted by: drew | Jun 22, 2009 6:16:32 PM
