Joel Runyon publishes ImpossibleHQ.com and he wrote an interesting article about getting the Twitter handle he needed by buying a domain name. Some may not agree with the method because Joel did a workaround that did not include getting Twitter to give him the handle.
From the article:
Here’s how I did it.
Background
I started PaleoMealPlans.com a few months back – in conjunction with the Ultimate Paleo Guide business.
Since then, it’s done well enough to continue pushing it strongly outside of just the email & push into social media landscape.
I was able to get the Facebook profile at fb.com/paleomealplans but the accompanying twitter handle (@paleomealplans) was just sitting there – no tweets – no nothing. Opened in 2012 & the last activity was 2012. Snooze fest.
The website associated with the profile was paleodietmealplans.com – similar in concept to ours – but apparently no longer in use. I wanted to see if I could get the twitter handle since it matched my domain exactly.
Joel goes on to talk about how he won the domain on NameJet. After that he moves on to Twitter. He tried to reset the password on an account he doesn’t own. By putting in the username he was able to see some part of the email address.
From the article:
In my case, twitter basically asked me:
“Do you want to reset the password for in**@p***************ns.com?
Now, in a vacuum of information, this isn’t helpful at all – that could be anything. But, going off a hunch and based on what was listed in the profile – I took a flier that they meant the email was info@paleodietmealplans.com – the same domain that was in their profile & the same domain that was now legally mine.
Jackpot.
I setup a “catchall” email forwarder to another email (so that any email to anything @ paleodietmealplans.com would forward to my inbox and clicked “reset”. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
Sure enough – I got an email in my inbox from twitter asking me to click here to reset the password:
Boom
I reset the password, and I was in.
I agree with Joel that Twitter is lazy or one would say incompetent by not recycling abandoned usernames and making them available again.
Some may not agree with the method that Joel used, I think once he owned the domain it exposes another flaw with Twitter. Someone using a catchall email is going to get all these requests for resets.
Read the full article as Joel does explain his rationale and a disclaimer on when not to try his method.
*Disclaimer: No one at TheDomains condones this method of acquiring a handle. Twitter needs to fix their business but this is not the way to go.
Twitter is a cess pool for moronic narcissists and bored sycophants. I’m shocked that companies would waste ad dollars on this shrinking business.
I thought the cesspool for moronic narcissist and bored sycophants was domaining
Derp
You are correct there Shame, Kendall Kardashian makes more for sending out one tweet than 99% of domain investors make in a year. You get a penalty point for feeding the troll. #truthhurts
Pretty unethical, and against Twitter TOS. It happens, and I’ve seen some people target domains for the handle. Most companies don’t care that much about their Twitter handle b/c if you already have a great domain then you just make sure that your social buttons are prominent. Why promote your Twitter handle when you can promote your domain. “Brand continuity”; sure but the demand for matching handles just isn’t there.
What he has done is little different buying a domain because it is the whois contact of another. This is a case of theft in my view.
Yep…and a clear violation of Twitter’s TOS
Ok I can tackle this on a couple fronts, firstly it is against twitters TOS to sell a handle. However there is a work around to this, in fact two options. If a handle is not used in a X month period, cannot recall if it was 6 or not, twitter can delete it and make in available again. The second is an arrangement between the handle owner and an interested party, that agreement is legal and a work around.
What this guy did was in my opinion no different then buying a dropped domain used for admin email and stealing a domain associated with it.
Disgusting, unethical, lazy (since twitter may have deleted it any way due to lack of use) and something I would not recommend to anyone. It also speaks to his nature, great advertisement eh, work with me a guy who simply steals what he wants.
He should have contacted Twitter, pointed it out they would have deleted it, Joel is wrong in assuming that don’t.
And Ray, appreciate the article but find it hard to believe you don’t condemn this type of behaviour.
Oh I don’t condone the behavior JP and spend alot of time with Twitter. I just wanted to pose a question to get reactions, others have felt that it was ok but I think the fact that Twitter was not involved makes it not the right way to go about things.
I also wanted to point out one of the flaws that Twitter nneds to fix. They also have become lazy freeing up handles, I know some doing it the right way, including myself, who emailed them over a year ago with several follow ups, I would never do this and just moved onto another variation.
I agree of course the best way or ethical way would have been contacting Twitter and have them look at and delete it. If true that they are slow to or do not always oblige does not give him permission to do what amounts to theft.
I have dealings with Twitter and Handles and can tell you the best way is the work around (I will not get into how, its how I eat, not free) but simply having a handle deleted that is unused is most times near impossible to register before gone again. Why is that, people are using software to register handles and reregister handles, near impossible to compete with.
I am not a Twitter fan myself and it seems to only benefit teens and superstars to “fame”. I would personally rather stick to other more profitable social forums where I can reach a more realistic customer base for my business.
Yes, Twitter should fix that problem, because I think inactive handlers is much more than the active one.
Twitter should drop handlers without activity for eq 2 years, 3 year, whatever.
First Morgan Linton now Raymond Hackney. Why do you even have to ask this question and why help spread the word how to do it? Why not write (if you must) an article about why it’s wrong? It’s very simple. If it’s not yours, leave it alone. We learned this as children yet Morgan and Raymond seem to have to ask the masses what is right or wrong. SMH
Wrong it was fucking genius
To spark conversation I believe I said it as not cool, and provided a disclaimer, others on other venues seemed to think it was ok. Plus no one is spreading the word on how to do the email part been known for years. The domain aspect was the part of the story that was new.
Raymond ignore the trolls.
Hi,
It’s actually a good old hack via pw-reset. You can also hunt expired domains for the same reason. Actually, quite a lot of interesting ‘things’ may be found upon configuring catch-all email at the domain which was previously used 🙂
However, please do not forget that unauthorized access may be treated like a malicious action/intent. Still, many will find this technique useful
Stay true 🙂
I prefer Instagram
If you are a criminal it’s genius, the replies stating it is ok is head shaking.