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Top 10 Stories of 2011: #7 How to get a Twitter username that is already taken

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More people have been warming to Twitter over the past year, but when they go to sign up for an account, they often find the Twitter username they want (much like a domain name) is already taken. 

The number seven story in this year’s Top 10 is How to get a Twitter username, that’s already taken, a story I wrote in June after successfully obtaining @Fusible, a username that was registered by someone else, but never used. 

Many Twitter stories published here have garnered plenty of attention by sites like TechCrunch, such as Twitter winning a dispute for the typo Twiter.com (missing a ‘t’) and Twitter going after Twittter.com (extra ‘t’). 

But the story of how to get a Twitter username to this day still attracts readers, even months after being written.   

Just a couple weeks ago, Jon Mitchell a writer for the popular tech news site ReadWriteWeb, published an article using the steps detailed in my post, and he was able to get the Twitter handle he wanted.  “Thanks to J.B. at Fusible for showing me how this works. I can’t believe it, but it really does!”, wrote Jon.

It’s not a silver bullet, but submitting an Impersonation Claim with Twitter, gives you a much better chance of getting a response, than simply opening a Help ticket with the microblogging site.