No disagreements there. My goal is to make this THE BEST list (of all, if any) out there. As much as I see AI taking over handling variations, it'll still need an exhaustive source of truth about what's what and I really think I'd be able to provide that with this API.
Right on all counts. Twitter is a rather simplified example. I see it as something that literally every platform can use. Say, ProductHunt, other platforms that offer product launches, link-in-bio tools etc. etc. I'm a bit bullish around the market because, regardless of me knowing all of 'em, the challenge of using usernames exists in general.
On the static list, yes. Me too. But I keep updating mine as well. For ex: on day 1, "apple" was just a dictionary word. On day 2, it was also classified as a brand. Also, every quarter, half-yearly or yearly, there are newer companies, public figures whose usernames keep getting to be significant. Currently, though manually, I intend to maintain this list for the long run.
As for a better, permanent solution, on another comment, I came across using an LLM/classifer for this (based on my understanding, that's not just asking OpenAI but building an LLM of my own) where I have the "best" source of truth and the LLM handles all variations. I think it actually is solvable to an extent now. Though, I'm not sure what the final solution looks. I WILL SOLVE THIS THOUGH :D
YOU NAILED IT! That's part of what I want to explore next too. One of the other common thing I've heard is to check other social media platforms to check if a username is reserved. But, namevine.com already did that. Maybe it doesn't do it as accurately anymore. Almost all platforms are super protective of their API usage in that way. In any case, that's definitely the next challenge to solve for.
I see. Will re-run through the categories and the datasets from which I've adopted the names and categories. Maybe either I missed something or it might've not existed in the import in the first place. But noted. Also, thanks :)
Interesting. I think you're right (on the API category this falls under). Also love the approach on keeping this API async. Makes so much more sense that way.
Yes; I've gotten that request from another person on LinkedIn too for bulk checking existing usernames. Will work on releasing that shortly too. Thanks for being helpful and constructive all the way throughout the convo :)
Interesting! Didn't think about it that way. Currently, it's a super dumb system. There's a list of ~1.7 million records and the API simply looks-up against that. Super lazy approach. Was avoid running an API across OpenAI or other model but didn't think about hosting a classifier/LLM myself. Might consider it in the future.
Full disclosure: I'm not a developer. I understand tech architectures well. Can code (have coded in JS pre-AI too) BUT will figure this out as I go along. Thanks and truly appreciate the input.
I think there's a general aversion to subscriptions at the moment so wanted to offer this on a usage-based pricing to begin with. While I may have to (hope not to though) will switch to subscription if that's what most users end up asking for. Thanks for the note and comment though. Much appreciated.
You're right about the variations there. I did think about it but decided NOT to add that in this version (felt like over-complicating the process), which I've now come to understand IS a required criteria. Will work on improving this.
As for @cocacola — that's on me. I've not yet gotten to the bottom half of the list of categories here: https://docs.username.dev/reference/categories (need to work on "government" and below). "company" is listed there and I suspect "cocacola" should be covered there.
In hindsight, I should've reserved names that I'm showing in the flipping text of the hero title but I didn't want to game the system or make it seem more reliant than it currently is. Which, again, I'm learning is not so reliant to begin with anyway.
PS. Love the passion around the topic here. One thing that I'm happy about is getting the problem validated. It's not in my head, I'm not the only one experiencing it, this is real. AND I WILL SOLVE IT :)
True. I've tried to add language where possible. I think currently, it's only on dictionary words so if the username is a dictionary word in another name, it would be flagged. It may or may not show-up under the "restricted" category though.
Well, to clarify, this API is really for folks who're building platforms that require usernames. For ex: imagine if you were building the next Twitter or anything that requires usernames. There, you'd want to know what's happening with these kinds of usernames, where, people are now prepared to pay for too (premium usernames). Similarly, for cases where the names are offensive or profane, you may want to block outright.
As for definition of specific categories (more specifically public figures), you're right. Currently, it's just me building this and so I had to decide where to draw the line. I just drew it around the entire earth which I know is NOT the best appraoch but that's the one I went with just to ensure I cover all bases. Honestly, the API would tell if and why a username could be deemed reserved/premium. What to do with this info is really up to the platforms that are consuming it. They could let it slide, do nothing, just flag and monitor, block etc.
Good point. Currently, I've got "kike" as a Spanish dictionary word and also a public figure. Honestly, the job of this API stops there. It tells the platform that this username needs to be handled differently than "randomusername7346783" which has absolutely no value. Now, what we do with this info is really up to admins/platform owners. They could simply do nothing, flag and monitor, charge a premium or block outright. Totally their call but they can now programmatically decide that.
Damn! Just read the title and a few lines from the post but will definitely go through it fully and thoroughly. Thanks for sharing.
I didn't mean to reduce the complexity of the challenge. Was mostly trying to convey that the specific cases being discussed, should be something that I could quickly solution and incorporate in the API.
You're right about ALL the different kinds of edge cases that exist though and really, I'm trying to have this API be the go-to solution for it. Clearly, it's still not there. But it will be. I'm now more sure than ever.
Fair. I suppose most newer platforms may not think too much about it. So here's the pitch though: Imagine you're building the next Twitter (or, you know the platform has the potential to become the next Twitter). Knowing what we know now about social media platforms, where, users are open to paying for premium usernames (ex: @apple, @cocacola, @media etc.), it would be nice to at least flag/know if there are folks trying to reserve with these usernames. You could decide later / async what to do about it but you'll at least have a way to flag. Similarly, you can also avoid profanity or abusive words from seeping in the platform also. You may want to restrict/block 'em outright.
As for bugs: what I see happening now is folks either have a static list (which is already bad; not a bug) or have pattern-matching to avoid these (which isn't full proof). Regex/pattern matching can only help in cases where we have "real" or "try" or "something" as a pre/postfix. More complex cases but don't really identify a wide range of premium / reserved names. IMO, for this, we will need a dictionary of sorts, which is what I'm hoping to achieve with this API.
It's a giant manual list. I'm a human maintaining it. Just need to do better in terms of the API / deliverability side of things.
My take on latency in general is this: You may just use the API to flag (not act) in an async way. This way, you can just alert/monitor and decide later whether or not to take any actions while keeping the flow non-blocking. Another approach would be to run it against existing handles to see what opportunities exist (ex: premium usernames, impersonators etc.).
Not a joke (I'm taking this in the spirit intended) but I can see there are TONS of things I need to be improving on:
1. latency: my original goal was to make it sub-10s but with checking for auth, cold starts, the actual lookup, couldn't get it to do better than 2-300ms. I need to improve this though and I will.
2. increased list size: currently, the lookup happens across 1.7million records (will go up to 2.5m in the next days/weeks) BUT I don't think that would ever cover ALL scenarios.
3. better categorisation
- site is AI generated: yes. I'm NOT a developer. I vibe-coded it using Cursor and other AI tools
- post is AI generated: not 100%. I wrote the whole thing myself (promise). The sentiment is real, so is all the context. I just asked AI to polish it. Had made too many typos in my original text. To avoid being labelled as "AI content", I now make video responses for the most part. Please check my twitter (same username) and you'll see.
- lots of holes: you bet! what I'm happy about is though that the problem statement is validated to an extent. I see multiple people ack'ing that the problem is real. It's just that my solution is bad. I can improve it and I will.
- paying: yes, you're right. IMO, they should try first. complain, complain, complain so I can get to fixing issues (like from many of the comments here) and only if they need to make more API requests, they could then choose to pay
Tell me about 'em. Will add to the list. I doubt I'll be able to stop ALL variations but I really am determined to manually keep this list updated as best as possible. Currently at 1.7 million records; will be at around 2.5 million in the coming months and I suspect this will just keep increasing.