the tindog coffeehouse

What’s the easiest way to lose all your Twitter followers and throw out over 2,000 tweets? Start over with a new Twitter account.

For the record, I wouldn’t recommend it.

That wasn’t my intent, of course. But that’s what happened over the weekend. In “Internet-speak” it’s considered an epic fail on my part.

Here’s the deal. I created a Twitter account over a year ago on a whim. I didn’t know much about it and had doubts I would even use it. After all, most people who aren’t on Twitter — and even most who are — don’t get it. But I signed up anyway out of curiosity and chose a Twitter handle that complemented my blog. (“Tindog” was taken so I went with the alternate “tindogcoffee”.) At the time I didn’t intend on using my full name or even putting my picture on my profile.

Fast forward a year later, and I was considering changing my handle to my name, “jasonspooner”. But I couldn’t go through with it; I was too attached to “tindogcoffee”. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to lose my name to another Jason Spooner, so I created a second account with that username. (Yes, that’s technically squatting, and yes, that’s technically a violation of Twitter’s TOS. Tell that to the squatter using the “tindog” handle.)

Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I decided I should use my “jasonspooner” account. But Twitter makes it impossible to transfer usernames from one account to another. So I couldn’t just rename my “tindogcoffee” account; I would have to start over from scratch.

In the Twitter world, that’s suicide. I knew that. I knew most of my followers wouldn’t make the transition. That’s nothing against them, it’s just human nature and the nature of the platform. But I made the decision anyway. And even though I still wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, I think it may ultimately be for the best.

It made me realize how much value I place in those little numbers on my profile page. The number of followers I have, the number of tweets I’ve posted, the number of lists I’m on. Even though I’ve said before that those things aren’t important, I still kept coming back to them for validation. And that’s not right.

So I’m starting over. It may the absolute worst thing to do in the social networking world, but I think it’s the best thing for me.

Previously:
Who are you following?
A little social network housecleaning