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First of, you could have skipped the insults. Apparently you do not know much about Steve. I recommend you go read some of his 70+ ideas he posted almost 2 year

First of, you could have skipped the insults. Apparently you do not know much about Steve. I recommend you go read some of his 70+ ideas he posted almost 2 years back. Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it. 18 months ago, most people did not know about Twitter and they could not see it being useful to anyone. Steve did. You should go back to his blog entries at TechQuilaShots. He was sharing ideas on how businesses could take advantage of Twitter. Only a few read his blog and a fewer followed his advices. So he did it. Now they want to take that away from him. Not cool.

radley 18y ago
Twitter-squatting is not the same as domain-squatting. It's more in line with MySpace which has also reserved the right to manage names as they see fit. Steve's doing nothing more than assuming an opportunity and making an * of himself by complaining about it.
Retric 18y ago
That's just it there was no opportunity and Twitter is better off preventing people from trying exploit others by being the first to grab interesting names.
GHFigs 18y ago
In this case, it's quite clear that Steve saw an opportunity to make money where there wasn't one. His attempt to squat on these "quality" names that were "front row seats" was based on the ridiculous idea that a Twitter name is worth money. He was wrong.
kragen 18y ago
“Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it.” That happened to my wife a couple of months ago; she was trying to use her laptop on the street to record a protest, and someone saw an opportunity where most people did not, and ran off carrying her laptop. I bet he benefited from that. That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.
- jamiequint 18y ago
  So Twitter making money by getting the Celtics their @ name is more worthy than letting a guy run fan information using that name? Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense.
  - GHFigs 18y ago
    The author did not present any evidence that Twitter made money on this. It's only his speculation based on his own valuation of the name. Since when does Twitter make money anyway?
  - kragen 18y ago
    You fail at reading comprehension.
    - jamiequint 18y ago
      Feel free to actually say something constructive without being an asshole next time. Did the guy violate any rules? Not unless you go by a strict definition of Twitter's TOS. Your original analogy makes no sense. The Celtics didn't have the name stolen from them (they never owned it in the first place) and the guy wasn't using it for a non-legitimate reason, so why should he not benefit from the common knowledge of the association of "Celtics" with the Boston Celtics basketball team?
      - kragen 18y ago
        I said, “That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.”. Your response was a complete non-sequitur, and furthermore it appeared to attribute to me a position including material facts that are probably false. In the comment to which I am replying, you have called me an “asshole.” I appreciate your expressed concern for the constructiveness of the conversation. May I suggest that you try a different strategy if a constructive conversation is what you seek? Putting words in the mouths of other participants and name-calling may not be the most effective way to engage in a constructive conversation. I was just pointing out that rokhayakebe's syllogism, “Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it,” depends on an absurd unstated premise. Whether this blogger who we’re talking about happens to be a robo-spamming scumbag or not isn’t really relevant to that. And that is why you fail at reading comprehension.
webwright 18y ago
Totally disagree... And I believe the law does as well, when it comes to domain names (the best precedent I can think of). If I bought toyota.com, nissan.com, honda.com, etc when domain names first came available, that doesn't mean I have the rights to keep them unless I had legitimate interests in those domain names that didn't compete with the trademark holder (as was the case in the Nissan.com situation). Certainly, a lot of people benefited from those early buys, but if they got greedy, they generally got sued (and lost). Even typosquatters have successfully been sued. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Trademarks_and_domain_names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Trademarks_and_domain... I've enjoyed some of Steve's writings in the past, but I think he's dead wrong here.
- jamiequint 18y ago
  I don't understand the association of capitalism with greed, certainly people who had the foresight to understand that domains would be valuable at some point in the future (and put their money where their mouths were) should be compensated (at a reasonable price) for taking that risk no?
  - webwright 18y ago
    Taking the risk and grabbing something generic-but-powerful, like "business.com" or "porn.com" seems fine. Grabbing someone elses brand name for the purpose of squatting on it and then extorting the trademark owner just seems wrong. The point is that the domains would have almost ZERO value if the business who has the trademark hadn't spent huge piles of money building the brand and the goodwill around it. In this guys case, he grabs @celtics and tosses up some basketball stats, and he's basically leeching off the brand. It's not dissimilar to setting up a Hamburger stand and calling it "McDonalds" with a stylized "M" logo. In domain/twitter name case, there's no actual risk being taken. Twitter names are free. Domain names are cheap ($30/year at first). So in my mind, they should be compensated at a reasonable price for the risk they took... Let's say 30x return on whatever they put into it. :-)

radley 18y ago

Twitter-squatting is not the same as domain-squatting. It's more in line with MySpace which has also reserved the right to manage names as they see fit. Steve's doing nothing more than assuming an opportunity and making an * of himself by complaining about it.

Retric 18y ago

That's just it there was no opportunity and Twitter is better off preventing people from trying exploit others by being the first to grab interesting names.

GHFigs 18y ago

In this case, it's quite clear that Steve saw an opportunity to make money where there wasn't one. His attempt to squat on these "quality" names that were "front row seats" was based on the ridiculous idea that a Twitter name is worth money. He was wrong.

kragen 18y ago

“Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it.” That happened to my wife a couple of months ago; she was trying to use her laptop on the street to record a protest, and someone saw an opportunity where most people did not, and ran off carrying her laptop. I bet he benefited from that. That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.

jamiequint 18y ago
So Twitter making money by getting the Celtics their @ name is more worthy than letting a guy run fan information using that name? Sorry, but that doesn't make any sense.
- GHFigs 18y ago
  The author did not present any evidence that Twitter made money on this. It's only his speculation based on his own valuation of the name. Since when does Twitter make money anyway?
- kragen 18y ago
  You fail at reading comprehension.
  - jamiequint 18y ago
    Feel free to actually say something constructive without being an asshole next time. Did the guy violate any rules? Not unless you go by a strict definition of Twitter's TOS. Your original analogy makes no sense. The Celtics didn't have the name stolen from them (they never owned it in the first place) and the guy wasn't using it for a non-legitimate reason, so why should he not benefit from the common knowledge of the association of "Celtics" with the Boston Celtics basketball team?
    - kragen 18y ago
      I said, “That someone “saw an opportunity when most people did not” doesn't really tell you anything about whether exploiting that opportunity is moral or immoral.”. Your response was a complete non-sequitur, and furthermore it appeared to attribute to me a position including material facts that are probably false. In the comment to which I am replying, you have called me an “asshole.” I appreciate your expressed concern for the constructiveness of the conversation. May I suggest that you try a different strategy if a constructive conversation is what you seek? Putting words in the mouths of other participants and name-calling may not be the most effective way to engage in a constructive conversation. I was just pointing out that rokhayakebe's syllogism, “Secondly, he saw an opportunity when most people did not, so he should totally benefit from it,” depends on an absurd unstated premise. Whether this blogger who we’re talking about happens to be a robo-spamming scumbag or not isn’t really relevant to that. And that is why you fail at reading comprehension.

webwright 18y ago

Totally disagree... And I believe the law does as well, when it comes to domain names (the best precedent I can think of). If I bought toyota.com, nissan.com, honda.com, etc when domain names first came available, that doesn't mean I have the rights to keep them unless I had legitimate interests in those domain names that didn't compete with the trademark holder (as was the case in the Nissan.com situation). Certainly, a lot of people benefited from those early buys, but if they got greedy, they generally got sued (and lost). Even typosquatters have successfully been sued. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Trademarks_and_domain_names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark#Trademarks_and_domain... I've enjoyed some of Steve's writings in the past, but I think he's dead wrong here.

jamiequint 18y ago
I don't understand the association of capitalism with greed, certainly people who had the foresight to understand that domains would be valuable at some point in the future (and put their money where their mouths were) should be compensated (at a reasonable price) for taking that risk no?
- webwright 18y ago
  Taking the risk and grabbing something generic-but-powerful, like "business.com" or "porn.com" seems fine. Grabbing someone elses brand name for the purpose of squatting on it and then extorting the trademark owner just seems wrong. The point is that the domains would have almost ZERO value if the business who has the trademark hadn't spent huge piles of money building the brand and the goodwill around it. In this guys case, he grabs @celtics and tosses up some basketball stats, and he's basically leeching off the brand. It's not dissimilar to setting up a Hamburger stand and calling it "McDonalds" with a stylized "M" logo. In domain/twitter name case, there's no actual risk being taken. Twitter names are free. Domain names are cheap ($30/year at first). So in my mind, they should be compensated at a reasonable price for the risk they took... Let's say 30x return on whatever they put into it. :-)