I want to be @mike!

I know I wasn’t the first one on Twitter so I didn’t get a cool username or anything, but now I want one. 

The one I really want is @mike, but that is taken.  Being somewhat in the loop, I know that @mike either has worked at Twitter or knows the guys that do since most all of them have those “cool” usernames, while the rest of us get @mike123x or something of the like.  I could be wrong though.

Now I am not mad at @mike, just jealous.  He actually is actively using his account, has followers, follows people and even has a picture.  He is account is “protected” so I am fairly confident this is a legit account.

In full disclosure, I will say my username of @mike_peery isn’t bad.  It could be a lot worse.  When I first signed up, I even had @mnpeery, which I use for a lot of other things and was happy with it.  But I quickly realized people were using their names, hence why I changed.

But the “underscore” in my username is really starting to bug me!  I started digging around last night to see what is available and what isn’t.  What I found I think frustrated me even more.  So here are three of the usernames I looked at and what I found:

@mike – Already mentioned.  Account is being actively used.  No complaints here. 

@peery – Being used by someone name Peer Desilva.  Not even named “Peery”!  To top it off, they have NO tweets, NO profile picture, NO followers and they are only following ONE person!  Big time squatter. 

@mikepeery – This account is interesting.  Looks to be a real person.  He is a “Husband & Dad, Catholic, CFD and Scientific Viz.”  He is following several dozen people, has people following him, but he has ONE tweet…back in March! 

I started digging around to see what I could do to maybe acquire either @peery or @mikepeery since it seemed pretty obvious that these two accounts were not being used.  It appears that unless I trademark “peery” or “mikepeery” I really don’t have a claim to either of them.

But it got me to thinking…should I try and trademark and/or copyright “mike peery”?  I have a website (www.mikepeery.com) that I post pics and blogs to and it is my brand.  I have a very active Facebook page, Twitter account and a YouTube account I post a lot of videos to…I would say that I have an Internet presence.  It might not be as big as others, but I am out there.

So those of you with blogs and an “internet presence”, have you ever thought about doing this?  Let me know your thoughts!  Oh, and if you know how I can get @mikepeery or @peery, let me know that too!!!