Twitter is said to be planning to sell user names to bring in new revenue streams as Elon Musk tries to revive the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources say Twitter staff have held talks about the sale of some user names for the site since at least December. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Engineers have proposed holding online auctions<\/a><\/strong> where users may bid on user names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n READ MORE: FIRED TWITTER STAFF FINALLY GET SEVERANCE PAY MONTHS AFTER ELON MUSK\u2019S TAKEOVER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These are the words, figures, or strings of characters that appear after the @ symbol and are used to identify accounts on the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, Mr. Musk’s Twitter handle is @elonmusk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sources added it\u2019s unclear if the plan will proceed and whether it would affect all user names or just a fraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Musk said last month that he intended to start removing inactive Twitter accounts<\/a><\/strong> to free up 1.5 billion user names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n READ MORE: MORE THAN 200 MILLION TWITTER ACCOUNTS HACKED AND POSTED ONLINE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Only certain user names such as those of well-known people, brands, and popular names may have value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since Mr. Musk purchased it for $44 billion in October, the social media giant<\/a><\/strong> has been in upheaval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the exorbitant cost of the deal, the billionaire is under pressure to make the purchase a success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n READ MORE: NEW INVESTOR EVIDENCE SUGGESTS TWITTER LOST HALF ITS VALUE AFTER ELON MUSK TAKEOVER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Tesla billionaire has since reduced Twitter’s expenses by forcing layoffs, slashing other costs, and suspending vendor<\/a><\/strong> payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Musk has tried to explore new ways to generate money as Twitter’s ad revenue has plummeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has said that he plans to create an “everything app” like China’s WeChat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The app is used by over a billion people to access news, chat with friends, make payments, and order meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Need Career Advice?<\/strong> Get employment skills advice at all levels of your career<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unique user names, also known as handles, can be profitable.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Early adopters of social media platforms usually claim them, and some people and companies are ready to spend thousands of dollars on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People may now acquire “original gangster,” or O.G., user names that are coveted because they contain a short word or a number and may have been abandoned by their owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Musk and Twitter did not reply to requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source: The New York Times<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow us on YouTube<\/strong><\/a>, Twitter<\/strong><\/a>, LinkedIn<\/strong><\/a>, and Facebook<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twitter has plans to sell user names to bring in new revenue streams as Elon Musk tries to revive the business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":25165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2456,1065],"tags":[686,329],"class_list":["post-34792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-twitter-news","category-us-business-news","tag-elon-musk","tag-twitter"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whatjobs.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}