Ask HN: What do you do if someone has your startup's twitter name? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What do you do if someone has your startup's twitter name?

2 pointsRabidgremlin9 comments

So we have just discovered that someone else already has "our" twitter name ( http://twitter.com/splitthebill ) !

Bad planning we know, but what would you do? Ask the current owner if you can have it? Use an abbreviation? Something else?

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On the list of things to be worried about, this just seems to rank a few notches after what font you should use for the names on the conference room doors.

How important to the business plan is the twitter name? I dont think you will get it from twitter just because you want it.

If twitter is vital to your business suceeding/marketing plan, then maybe something like "splitthebilldotcom", to make it look "official".

I see you asked twitter, but have you asked/received a response from the user yet?

The twitter account will be used more for status/news then for marketing...

Other then sending the user a DM (which they are unlikley to answer on an inactive account) we have no obvious way of contacting the owner...

Do you have a trademark on the name? If you do, contact twitter and they will give it to you (I worked for a company that did this). Even if you don't, it's worth a try contacting twitter since the account seems inactive.

No trademark (in the US). Have sent an email to twitter support. Not holding my breath however.

Oh, since it's pretty much dead, contact twitter and let them know that's your startup's name.

Has anyone had any luck requesting transfers with non-brand names that have been dead for years? I tried contacting twitter, the account owner, other twitter reps and tried their web forms, all to nothing.

BTW we launched our alpha today: http://blog.split-the-bill.com/its-alive-45

Just an update. Got no response from twitter, so we went with @split_the_bill

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