

Domain Pigeon adds 20K+ available Twitter names--more on the way - matt1
http://www.domainpigeon.com/

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sgrove
A great example of a startup iterating quickly and moving into relevant
spaces. I imagine the cost to analyze available twitter names was minimal, and
will provide considerable value to the "twitter brand" types.

Overall brilliant feature. Just wish they were a bit more active in
responding.

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matt1
Thanks, I'm glad you like it! Checking Twitter name availability was
relatively easy compared to redoing a large chunk of the site to accomodate
more than just domain names.

What do you mean by "Just wish they were a bit more active in responding?"

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markessien
I think you made a mistake here. Twitter names are not the same as domain
names because the amount of info they contain will always be limited by
design. But you've elevated them into the main namespace and diluted your core
offering, in a manner that is unclear to new users.

It's a good idea to have twitter names, I just think that the position on the
page of the names is bad - they should have been on a different page. I also
think you should have gone with long domains also like I suggested last time.

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matt1
Given Twitter's popularity and current growth rate, I think it'd be a mistake
NOT to elevate it the front page.

And anyway, visitors can always filter by domain names only or Twitter names
only, allowing them to explore only what they're interested in.

I'm still considering the long names. One thing at a time :)

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daveungerer
When I scan the headlines on HN, I usually pay little attention to the links
I've already clicked on. I'm sure many others do the same. Guess that's a good
lesson: create a blog post or a separate page, e.g.
www.domainpigeon.com/twitter, when announcing a new feature.

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thalur
Just a little thing: if I click on a twitter name, it takes me to a page which
says "this domain is still available".

Also, I agree with the idea of splitting up the domain and twitter names - it
was far from obvious to me at first look to see which was which. Either that
or move the legend to above/below the filters as it appears off the bottom of
the page at the moment.

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matt1
Any chance you have JavaScript disabled?

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thalur
Its entirely possible that it's something to do with my browser - I was
looking at it from work where we have to use ie6 :(

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joshwprinceton
i don't use twitter, despite the multiple invitations from friends...at least
not yet

nonetheless, as soon as i saw this, i knew i had to register my startup's name
on twitter. thanks so much

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whatusername
probably a good lesson - basically where-ever possible - register the .com,
probably the .net, the twitter,gmail,hotmail,yahoo,wordpress,blogspot names as
well.

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sjs382
Who's gonna be the first to create a tool that does that all for you? :)

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matt1
There was a rate my startup type post a few months back of a site that checked
the availability of user names on all those sites with a single click. If you
can find it, it's probably as close as you're going to get (since it'd be very
hard with all the CAPTCHAs to automate the name registration). Mechanical
Turk, anyone?

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whatusername
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10223183-2.html>

that looks like the startup you're talking about

