They're elusive, but they exist: The members of the rarified first name club on Twitter. The people whose handles don't include convoluted combinations of middle initials, partial surnames, underscores, random numerical digitals or attempted witticisms.
The members of the first name club include the founders of the social platform — Jack Dorsey (@jack), Biz Stone (@biz), Ev Williams (@ev) and Noah Glass (@noah) — along with a small cabal of early adopters, technologists and journalists. But more recently, a borderline NBA All-Star joined their ranks.
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Andre Iguodala is a swingman for the Golden State Warriors. Astute hoops fans will recall that his Twitter handle used to be @MindAI9, a reference to his jersey number. But now it's simply @andre.
Although Iguodala made the All-Star team in 2012, he's not a superstar by any stretch, and even the game's biggest names can't weasel their way into the first name club. So how did Iguodala do it?
He didn't. The sleek new handle was a Christmas present. Here's the story that Iguodala told ESPN The Magazine:
I was on Twitter early, but I had to get off because it's hard tweeting and playing in Philly [he used the play for the Philadelphia 76ers]. I have a brand consultant who said we should change my handle from @MindofAI9. I don't know what my business manager did to get it, but he gave me @Andre as a gift last Christmas.
So there you have it: All you need for infinite Twitter coolness is a business manager adept at pulling strings.
But @andre just scratches the surface of Iguodala's techie credentials. He signed with the Warriors this past off-season in part to get closer to the Bay Area's tech scene. He breaks bread with social media execs, checks WSJ.com religiously, interned with Merrill Lynch during the most recent NBA lockout and is interested in starting a venture capital fund in the future. For more, you can check out his full interview in ESPN The Magazine here.
Image: Tim Shelby, Flickr