About @EricSchmidt: Google CEO Gets A Better Twitter Name

Mg Siegler

MG Siegler is a general partner at Google Ventures and a columnist for TechCrunch, where he has been writing since 2009. Previously, MG was a general partner at CrunchFund. And before TechCrunch, MG covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. He’s previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked... → Learn More

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Screen shot 2009-12-07 at 8.51.06 AM

Last night, we wrote about Google CEO Eric Schmidt joining Twitter. Unfortunately, he chose a truly awful name for his account, @eschmidt0. We wondered why he didn’t pull some strings to get @ericschmidt, an account which was under suspension and likely available. Well voila! Today he has done just that.

Eric Schmidt is now @ericschmidt. And yes, Twitter has finally verified the account. He’s gone from about 70 followers when we posted last night to over 5,000 already. We’ll take full credit for that — all we ask for in return is that he retweets us more than he does his other friends, like Heidi Montag.

So what will become of eschmidt0? Apparently someone else already has it. Listed under the name “Just Me” they already have 44 followers (and rising fast). Their first tweet is “Hi.” We better update that story from last night.

Update: Google’s Matt Cutts tweets that eschmidt0 now belongs to “Felipe Barreto,” perhaps that’s the name he entered before “Just Me.” Maybe he’s trying to ride the Eric Schmidt wave. And it looks like it’s working.

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