Twitter handles: the available, the regrettable and why it's okay to a be a bit loopy

Seemed like a good idea in 2008 didn’t it? calling yourself littlebunnyfufu on Twitter because no-one you knew was on it or looked likely to join it and that was your msn name back in the 90s. Now though, you’ve got a serious job in social media, it’s the top google result for your name and all potential employers are looking at it.

Twitter has made it pretty easy to change your username, you just have to edit text in a box and save it: “Change your Twitter user name anytime without affecting your existing tweets, @replies, direct messages, or other data.” they say, the only catch is that a lot of good twitter names have already gone.

Name real estate is a bit of a problem on Twitter where there can only be one of each name. It’s not a problem on Facebook – where there can be hundreds of different John Smiths and though it is a problem a bit on popular email services like gmail, because there a lot of different domain names for email @hotmail, @googlemail whatever, it is less acute.

As Twitter gains in popularity, getting the username you want gets a little trickier, but fortunately Twitter announced they are releasing a lot of inactive or blocked names so that people who want to use them properly can have them.

Opinions from Twitter:
Anyway after a little conferencing from our distinguished Twittersphere friends, people made the point, that names on Twitter are allowed to be more fun because it’s a convention of the site. It’s not the same as email.

While you may not want to be always known as pissedstudent68 or gingerbum, you don’t always have to play safe.

Emkwan says: @shinyshiny urm not really… emkwan is cool me thinks lol
and – @shinyshiny hmmm i guess. but i use emkwan as an email name too… lol ppl just think im weird.. but me dont mindz lol

jacintadawn says: @shinyshiny a cute name on twitter might be nice but it makes it really hard when you’re following ppl and no1 has their real name!x

TwittaBling says: @shinyshiny you can definitely be a little more playful w/ your twitter name than u’d be w/ email. show a diff side of yourself.

LNT89 says: @shinyshiny Agreed w/r to e-mail, but I find “cute” names on twitter nauseating. I like names like @themanwhofell and @ethidiumbromide etc.

The Moral: being a bit weird on twitter kind of pays off.
Stick any examples of embarrassing ‘uns in the comments.