Usernamecheck knows where your name is still available
Sorry, John.
If you're one of those people who tries to grab his or her own preferred username on every new service that comes along, just in case the service becomes hot one day and you want to start using that cool ID, check out this new tool: Usernamecheck.
All it does is ask you for a user name, and then pings about 45 services so it can return to you "taken" or "available" for each one.
If a name is taken, it can't tell you if the owner of it is you or someone else (how would it know?), and there's as yet no way to add new sites for it to check--you have to wait for the developer to add them. Also, it's slow. And it doesn't appear to work on anything but Firefox.
But this is a useful tool for managing one's personal brand. And here's a tip for parents-to-be: Run your baby names through it, as well as through BustAName. Your kid might thank you.
Related: The looming crisis: Personal syndication overload.
Via Delicious.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe. 
http://jon.sykes.me/234/will-it-scale
I totally agree with your linked article http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10046826-2.html the volume of sites that come out every day that require a user account to be setup is amazing and although their have been attempts by the likes of Google and Facebook to remove this need by allowing people to use their systems I still think there is a huge hole in the market for that one account to rule them all.
Then clicked the "?" button next to the username field, still nothing happened.
Frustrating when something like this happens. Its difficult enough to get people to use your service, but its even more difficult to get back the people who didn't have a good experience the first time they tried your service...
- by itcndev March 12, 2009 4:56 AM PDT
- That site is gone, but a new site which checks usernames across over 100+ different social media websites is now available at <a href="http://checkusernames.com">http://checkusernames.com</a>
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