I remember years ago stories about how large corporates were "held to ransom" to buy their domain names because, believing the internet to be a fad, they didn’t buy their "corporate" domain. Is the same thing going to happen with Twitter?
According to an article on PR Week:
"Seven out of ten FTSE 100 companies are at risk of being ‘brand-jacked’ because they have left their ID unclaimed on blogging platform Twitter.
UK PROs have been warned to reserve these names after reports in the US last weekend revealed someone had set up a fake account for Exxon Mobil.
According to research by Cow PR, 69 Twitter names related to FTSE 100 firms are unregistered. Brand names including Domino’s Pizza, Dulux Paints and Littlewoods are also on sale for £20 online."
It’s not quite the 6 figure numbers being quoted for domain names, but might make some geek in a back bedroom (is that an outdated stereotype?!) a few quid.
Bluearrow, Odgers or Jobserve are still available if anyone wants to try making £60!
I was following SethGodin for a while on Twitter. I found out later it wasn’t him, just someone who had set it up and used Twitterfeed to feed his blog posts in.
It was all in good intention and had over 8,000 followers. Though I look at it now and it looks like Twitter have deleted it.
http://twitter.com/SethGodin
It’s not the same as domain squatting when Twitter have the power to delete the account.