Domain name squatters are a pain in the arse. You spend days, weeks even, researching and building a new project and along the way find that your preferred domain name is taken. To make things worse, it’s squatted – no content on there of any value whatsoever, just a few ads and a script to auto-generate a few links.

Twitter has gone the same way. I’m not the only designer who wants to hook into the phenomenon that is Twitter, but finding a decent username that isn’t squatted is becoming more and more difficult. Often these accounts have a single tweet or none at all. At the very least they will have been inactive for months.

I recently launched a new site and wanted to add Twitter functionality. The first three usernames I tried – variations on the site name and the service it provides – were all taken and inactive.  One of the accounts I checked hadn’t been used since 2007 – what function does that serve?  And because it has been dormant for so long, getting in touch with the owner isn’t guaranteed either.

A friend who wanted a username  for another project received a non-committal response designed to nudge him into making a cash offer for the account name.  An account name the ‘owner’ got for free!

Twitter really should implement a system for releasing dormant usernames back into the available pool – it would help ensure the site doesn’t stagnate and that fresh content is constantly generated on all accounts.  In addition, squatters.

Update:
It appears that Twitter does have rules against account squatting and inactive accounts, but for some reason they are not enforcing half of them. This page goes into detail on what does and does not constitute a violation, but the rules are simply not being enforced right now. “Accounts that are inactive for more than 6 months may be removed” and “Selling free usernames is also a violation of the Twitter Rules” are both areas that need tightening up.