Twitter recycles usernames Freitag, 23. Juli 2010, 07:46:57
A while ago (I think it was in May 2010) I deleted my account @matthiasg on Twitter. But now someone else with that username is on Twitter: matthiasg.
This is strange, because when I deleted my account, Twitter stated:
Information from your deactivated account (username and email address) will be unavailable to use on a new account.
I guess they're running out of character combinations. No wonder: The Twitter username is limited to 15 characters. There are 26 letters in the alphabet. Numbers 0-9 are also allowed. And an underline. That's only 37 characters. Can someone do the math? How many usernames are possible?
I guess that means if someone closes a popular account, it's likely that someone else will try to grab it as soon as possible.
I closed my account @swisstweets (1400 followers) last month. I wonder how long it will take for someone to grab it. I just hope the new owner doesn't claim to be the original.
Markus Perdrizat schrieb am Freitag, 23. Juli 2010, 08:54 #
I actually checked whether I could register @swisstweets when you closed it exactly because I've seen at that time @matthiasg was already taken by somebody else.
Twitter's FAQ states that closed accounts will not be made available for registration again. I'm clueless as to whether the FAQ is incorrect and they do throw them into the pool again after some time, or something magically happened with @matthiasg that shouldn't have happened, and will not happen to @swisstweets.
Did you follow up with Twitter to find out?