Of usernames and the like
The other day I decided to revisit the social networks such as Twitter and Friendfeed since they are all the buzz of late. I had previously signed up under my own name some time back so I was set. My son (14) is into Facebook, Twitter hasn’t caught-on yet with him and his friends. I opened a new Twitter account for him under his name. My thinking was that in a year or two or three he will be glad he has it instead of being forced to use some other combo or pseudonym. As a collector and investor in Domain Names and learned long-ago that you are not the only one around with your name. I am lucky that I own the .Com’s etc. for my name. My girlfriend isn’t so fortunate since she shares the name of several cities around the country. For her, she probably will never be able to have her email address in her own name, or as her username on any of the more popular services. Which brings me back to Twitter. Each username is unique. So if you aren’t the first to register with your own name, then you are relegated to using some other variation, just like in the domain world. Logically, if you have registered the Twitter user name “John Smith”, or more even valuable, “John”, then you have possession of something that certainly will have tangible value to many people. Is there are market for such names similar to what exists in the Domain world? Does every new web service experience a “land rush” of early registers? It’s not unreasonable to expect that one or two of the 1421 Twitter users named John Smithwould pay some reasonable amount to have that user name. Single first or last name .COM’s sell for thousands. It would be interesting to know how many new registrations on Twitter start out with the persons’ real name, only to be told sorry: How about JohnSmith1422?
























