ok to reserver a few dozen usernames for a business idea?

[lucy]

A friend and I want to start a legitimate business involving a twitter
app. We're not sure what the best practice is regarding reserving
twitter usernames. We don't want to do anything slimey or abusive, but
we also don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot by being warm and
fuzzy instead of playing the marketing/convenience game.

Essentially, the question is: if we plan to make a bunch of related
apps, is it ok to reserve 50 usernames? Say our company is called Foo,
and we want to release FooBar, FooQux and FooMoo, etc.

option 1:

Is it ok to reserve each sub-app that users can interact via:
"@FooBar sekret command"
and so that they only get updates about FooBar if that's what
interests them?

option 2:

Dev-wise, it's pretty similar for users to have to interact via:
"@Foo Bar sekret command"
where Foo is our only reserved username. Users won't be able to
specifically follow the sub-app that interests them, but we could work
that out internally and only direct message relevant users.

The sub-apps are definitely apps in their own rights, rather than
categories. My friend and I are pretty serious about developing this
suite, and while some of the usernames won't get used (presumably we
can delete those accounts once that becomes clear), most of them will
be. We want to ensure our Foo brand doesn't run into problems. It
still feels greedy.

Is option 1 a standard thing to do? Will our accounts be taken from
us? Will we be banned?

Thanks!

[Alex Payne]

If you create a bunch of accounts in a short period of time, it's
likely that our support staff will ban those accounts. Please let them
know ahead of time: sup...@twitter.com.

--
Alex Payne - API Lead, Twitter, Inc.
http://twitter.com/al3x

[Doug Williams]

Lucy,
You should only create accounts for users that you are actively using.
Please do not create accounts to squat on them. A strong indication
that an account should not exist account is a noticeable lack of
followers.

From your description, I would suggest you concentrate on Option 2 and
focus your efforts on a single username for the game. Only after it
becomes clear that your users would benefit from independent names
would Option 1 make sense.

Thanks,
Doug Williams
Twitter API Support
http://twitter.com/dougw

[lucy]

Alex and Doug,

I appreciate your replies. We'll go with option 2 for now.

Thanks.

On Mar 18, 2:25 pm, Doug Williams <d...@twitter.com> wrote:
> Lucy,
> You should only create accounts for users that you are actively using.
> Please do not create accounts to squat on them. A strong indication
> that an account should not exist account is a noticeable lack of
> followers.
>
> From your description, I would suggest you concentrate on Option 2 and
> focus your efforts on a single username for the game. Only after it
> becomes clear that your users would benefit from independentnames
> would Option 1 make sense.
>
> Thanks,

> Doug WilliamsTwitterAPI Supporthttp://twitter.com/dougw

>
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 12:32 PM, lucy <a.downy.h...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > A friend and I want to start a legitimate business involving atwitter
> > app. We're not sure what the best practice is regarding reserving

> >twitterusernames. We don't want to do anything slimey or abusive, but

> > we also don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot by being warm and
> > fuzzy instead of playing the marketing/convenience game.
>
> > Essentially, the question is: if we plan to make a bunch of related

> > apps, is it ok toreserve50 usernames? Say our company is called Foo,

> > and we want to release FooBar, FooQux and FooMoo, etc.
>
> > option 1:
>

> > Is it ok toreserveeach sub-app that users can interact via: