information Twitter may finally be ready to monetize premium Twitter handles

[equity78]

According to a report by The New York Times it looks like Elon Musk shares an opinion that myself and some others in domaining have held on Twitter handles. The good ones are worth money. Mike first wrote back in 2009 about a TechCrunch story that said, “Twitter handles are quickly becoming as desirable as domains”. A new service just lauched this week called Tweexchange, a … [Read more...]

 

[Aradhi]

At least after purchasing Twitter, any subscriber to the site gradually loses confidence when he sees the speed of events, the speed of changes in website policy, terms, faq, and their abundance.

Yes its an issue, i mentioned above, specially when u are talking about a social media website in Twitter size. And popularity.

 

[bmugford]

For me as ex.
When my name James and I'm the first registrar of the Google Gmail:
[email protected]
The name of the mail is not entitled to be withdrawn even if the new Google owner is James, After I have an effective mailbox

So twitter.com handles same same:
its belong to the registered accounts itself

That is how it should work, but not really how it does work.

You basically are at the mercy of the company. They can really do as they please.

That is why the management is important. Having someone impulsive and erratic in charge is not really a good thing, especially when the company is also in financial trouble.

Brad

 

[MadAboutDomains]

He's been facing a load of nutters saying that the platform will be "full of hate" before they even gave them a chance to do anything. Companies pulled their ads because of the insanity that ensued. All complete bs. It's just a way to make the platform less appealing because someone thinks they didn't get their way. Twitter had years of ridiculousness, completely captured by one side of the isle.

If there weren't people going around saying "Blah de blah is the problem" then they may have had more options.

Anyway, I think the changes they've made are great already - more varied voices, better analytics, being brave in what they want to try, less propaganda in my mailbox. I could have a right laugh at the things they've put as the "top stories of the day" in my email history that nobody really cared about but about 5 people in the Twitter offices did...

 

[Gube]

They probably could even "rent" them just like domains
So if people want to keep an ultra short, meaningful, username, they'd have to pay a renewal fee every year

 

[bmugford]

They probably could even "rent" them just like domains
So if people want to keep an ultra short, meaningful, username, they'd have to pay a renewal fee every year

Yeah, that is a better business model really.

I would not be surprised at all if they implemented something like that.

Brad

 

[MKA]

They probably could even "rent" them just like domains

That problem with that is that not accounts would be treated equally. Which is an issue considering some good handles are active. So why would someone pay for @Forged, when the user who has @forge gets to use it for free? At the same time you can't do a rug-pull and charge everyone, because people would turn to other social media platforms.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

That problem with that is that not accounts would be treated equally. Which is an issue considering some good handles are active. So why would someone pay for @Forged, when the user who has @forge gets to use it for free? At the same time you can't do a rug-pull and charge everyone, because people would turn to other social media platforms.

But if the person already has the username what's the problem?

Not everything has to be equal.

- User 1 is using username @forge
- User 2 comes along and starts a subscription for the username @Forged and agrees to pay for it.

Simples

 

[Gube]

Comparing selling usernames to domains now makes me think they could also probably offer backorders
So if an user no longer uses/pays for "Forged", someone else can step in and pay to get it

But let's not give Musk too many of these ideas, I see him capable of asking that to be implemented as he desperately needs cash now

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Comparing selling usernames to domains now makes me think they could also probably offer backorders
So if an user no longer uses/pays for "Forged", someone else can step in and pay to get it

But let's not give Musk too many of these ideas, I see him capable of asking that to be implemented as he desperately needs cash now

He could also introduce one or two bloated international organisations to oversee it all as well and flood the market with new gUsernames

 

[MKA]

But if the person already has the username what's the problem?

Not everything has to be equal.

- User 1 is using username @forge
- User 2 comes along and starts a subscription for the username @Forged and agrees to pay for it.

Simples

The issue is that @forge is better, and you'd have to justify why @Forged is worth paying for. If it's a one-time payment then that's one thing (because you'll own it in the same sense as the owner of @forge), but if there's a monthly payment involved then the account is fundamentally different. You're continuously paying for something others are getting for free.

Comparing selling usernames to domains now makes me think they could also probably offer backorders
So if an user no longer uses/pays for "Forged", someone else can step in and pay to get it

I don't see it to be honest. There's already a backlash to the suggested auction of dead handles, and there would be way too many issues turning it into a subscription based service.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

The issue is that @forge is better, and you'd have to justify why @Forged is worth paying for. If it's a one-time payment then that's one thing (because you'll own it in the same sense as the owner of @forge), but if there's a monthly payment involved then the account is fundamentally different. You're continuously paying for something others are getting for free.

Well if it's no good it won't get bought/subscribed to. There isn't a problem there.

 

[MKA]

Well if it's no good it won't get bought/subscribed to. There isn't a problem there.

Of course it is. If @Forged would have netted them $1,000 on auction, but no one is willing to lease it then that's $1,000 lost.

And if you have a decent handle, e.g. @forged_llt, you might not even be interested in replacing it if it means you'll end up on a subscription service where your account will be terminated and your tweets purged if the service is cancelled.

 

[pb]

Telegram is selling their nice handles. Looks like it's a good gig.

Yes, and they first stole them form users, so there's a precedent. I use telegram daily and I had a channel with a nice handle that was not active for the moment (not empty either, it had some posts) but I had plans to use it (handle matched my website). It got taken away without any warning, I found out by accident, weeks or months later. Others reported similar stories. It is likely to be the same with twitter and any other platform that decides to monetize handles.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Yes, and they first stole them form users, so there's a precedent. I use telegram daily and I had a channel with a nice handle that was not active for the moment but I had plans to use it (handle matched my website). It got taken away without any warning, I found out by accident, weeks or months later. Others reported similar stories. It is likely to be the same with twitter and any other platform that decides to monetize handles.

Not great that obviously, but if you weren't actually using it then perhaps that's part of their criteria for taking it back

 

[pb]

Not great that obviously, but if you weren't actually using it then perhaps that's part of their criteria for taking it back

I had been been using it, then it was inactive but I had plans to use it. I was the admin of the channel and I use telegram daily. Yet I didn't get any warning. I think it was deliberate. I don't think they will sell that name as it's a direct match of my domain, so I'm just pissed they took it away and gave my channel some random gibberish name without the ability to change it back. So I dropped the plans to use telegram for anything besides private communication.

[edit] I checked their "marketplace" at fragment.com and my channel name is up for sale for $200, along with thousands, maybe millions others that make even less sense (@asdfghjkl4p for $200 anyone?). They said in their post-factum announcement "we withdrew all public Telegram addresses linked to channels that were empty or inactive for the last year. We will gradually reintroduce 99% of these addresses into public use (...) As for the highest-valued short usernames, the most efficient and fair way to distribute them seems to be by the auction" - but in reality they just squat on ~all these handles and try to push them for min. $200 each. Let's see if they keep their promise to release 99% of them eventually...

 

[MKA]

Let's see if they keep their promise to release 99% of them eventually...

The vast majority of handles are going to be terrible. This is why it makes sense to auction them off, because the ones that sell will turn a profit and the ones that don't will return to the registration pool.

But it should be made clear in the terms of service what you have to do to keep the account.

 

[mdrn]

Will be interesting to see how prices for premium handles go. I wonder if they are considering tokenizing the handles. Also curious if they will add a royalty or straight fee when re-sold (if they can be).

 

[NameInbox]

Sure thay will tokenizing the handles
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FmF0sakagAAap-W?format=jpg&name=small

https://twitter.com/x/status/1612698915933138945

 

[mdrn]

Sure thay will tokenizing the handles

https://twitter.com/x/status/1612698915933138945

Nice find

This will get interesting.

 

[NameInbox]

Also interesting, but worthless
from yellow press

Elon Musk Unfollows His Own Brother on Twitter​

https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-unfollows-own-brother-kimbal-twitter-1772554

Nice find

This will get interesting.

 

[MKA]

Sure thay will tokenizing the handles

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. This seems to be a copy of reddit's coin system, not sure what it has to do with handles.

 

[mdrn]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. This seems to be a copy of reddit's coin system, not sure what it has to do with handles.

Agreed, don't think it has to do with handles but the timing is interesting even though they have had this in the works for a while. Maybe those coins will be used to bid/purchase handles? We will see. I would assume not though as Twitter probably wants cold hard cash to increase their revenue.

 

[narek]

Here is a website where you can monitor your desired Twitter handle, and when it becomes available you'll receive a notification to your email.

Handle.horse - (yes, horse.)

 

[MKA]

Agreed, don't think it has to do with handles but the timing is interesting even though they have had this in the works for a while. Maybe those coins will be used to bid/purchase handles? We will see. I would assume not though as Twitter probably wants cold hard cash to increase their revenue.

It makes sense for them to monetize stuff like this, because it makes them a bit of money without negatively affecting the people who don't care about it. Same with the check-mark subscription.

But as far as the handles are concerned, I think they'll just put them up for auction, and the ones that don't sell will return to the registration pool. It's a fairly effective system, because accounts will continue to die off: businesses end, people forget their passwords, etc. so they can keep making money off this.

Here is a website where you can monitor your desired Twitter handle, and when it becomes available you'll receive a notification to your email.

Handle.horse - (yes, horse.)

Yeah...I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Here is a website where you can monitor your desired Twitter handle, and when it becomes available you'll receive a notification to your email.

Handle.horse - (yes, horse.)

I would recommend not giving details away to a service like this, you don't know how they might use the information against you to snag the name that in you want...