When I came to set up Say Digital Design I was posed with the formality of securing a URL that was short, relevant and recognisable. I then had to match that URL with a Twitter handle so the team and I could communicate to the wider world. Although SayDigital.com was taken we managed to secure the .co.uk and being a UK agency we weren’t too worried. When it came to the Twitter handle, it was plain sailing and @saydigital joined the stable.
Now this doesn’t make for much of a blog entry. This however has been my smoothest registration period during my web life, I have constantly had to grapple with domain hoarders hell bent on securing every .com known to man before jumping on the .co wagon. We kind of just accept that a good short domain will have now been snapped up and only a four to figure sum will secure it. Thats life. My question and possible concern is will Twitter meet tis end?
Twitter has over 450 million registered users and around 10 new accounts are registered every second. Not only does this demonstrate the sheer scale of Twitter but it also reveals how many of the accounts have been called into action. Registered accounts and active accounts are different beasts. Think about the amount of times you have seen an account with no posts but following 50,000 accounts or accounts that havent had a tweet since Oct ’09. Twitter states that for an account to be active the account holder must have tweeted within the last 12 months. But Twitter seem reluctant to turn over account names to the open market even after that period. Whilst reading Web Designer Magazine earlier in the month it was plain to see the different tactics used by folk who want a particular handle that is inactive but already registered. Often to no avail.
Sources online state that less than 50% of Twitters accounts are deemed active, that means means over 200 million accounts holding a name that account be used. Having discussed this at Say Digital over some Krispy Kreme’s it is clear that the holding of an account name that could be used elsewhere and given a real purpose is annoying. But why is Twitter being so tentative to release them? Is Twitter afraid that if their registered account users figures drastically drops they will be less appealing to investors? Or is it in the process of sorting this problem out?
If history is anything to go by, I would not be a little bit surprised if we see domain name auctions like we have to day for desirable Twitter handles in the future. Time will tell.
