There Is No @i In Twitter

So after yesterday’s Google Instant launch, when everyone was talking about what the first result was for each letter of the alphabet, (i.e. type “w” and “weather” is first), we thought that we’d look into the @a to @z users on Twitter. You can see the full list below, but as you’ll see, one of the 26 letters just doesn’t show up as an account on Twitter – @i.

We’ve emailed Twitter for comment for an explanation of this, but as Twitter rarely discusses “user statistics” we aren’t too hopeful. Really, we only see three possible reasons:

1. The account existed before, someone gave it up, and Twitter put it into review limbo. This is the most likely reason.

2. There is some technical reason why @i can’t exist – could be, but unlikely.

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3. Twitter is actually planning to launch a “Twitter i” social network to take on Facebook (yes, that’s a joke).

A number of the single letter accounts seem inactive to us, so where that is the case below we’ll note it. As far as these users are, @k works for Twitter, @z works for Square, and most of the “letters” live in San Francisco (which of course is where Twitter HQ is located). So without an further ado, here are the 26 letters of the Twitter alphabet, with the users’ real names and their Twitter bio:

@a Andrei Zmievski – Founding member of Analog, a web design & development co-operative. Photographer, coder, beer lover and brewer, Russian, and San Franciscan.

@b Brian Griffing – Hello, My Name is Brian.. I play music.. I tour.. you should come see me play a show!

@c Coley Wopperer – A world-nowned, combobulated, luctant, sheveled, and sometimes posterous, crastinating eased signer.

@d Dave Bragdon – Just a guy.

@e erin

@f Fred Oliveira – Designer/Developer hybrid, Thinker, Public Speaker, Ex-Techcrunch. Founder of WBS. Blogger.

@g greg (seemingly inactive)

@h Helgi Þormar Þ. – Party person, programmer, echolibre person etc etc

@i “Sorry that page doesn’t exist”

@j Juliette Melton – UX in SF. If it’s called human centered, electropop, or tropical fruit flavor I probably like it.

@k Kevin Cheng – Product manager @ Twitter • My book: seewhatimean.org • My iPhone game: arghgame.com • My UX webcomic: ok-cancel.com • My everything: @c

@l anonymous (account is completely inactive)

@m Mark Douglass

@n Naoki Hiroshima – A guy who cares nothing but his family and his friends, and what they care.

@o zero – ninja

@p paolo i. – things never happened in this order. maybe they never happened at all. the old man told me: ‘this planet is like a cougar’

@q Ariel Raunstien – Chief Doer of Things at QuickUnit; Unit Testing FanBoy; Potential Organ Donor Extraordinaire.

@r Rex Hammock – founder/ceo of media and content marketing firm Hammock Inc. (hammock.com) and wiki-wrangler of SmallBusiness.com. Lover of family, dogs, Titans and tomatoes.

@s (inactive)

@t Tantek Çelik – barcamp bicycler coder css designer evolve gtd hacker html5 independent microformats mozilla openweb optimist pescatarian rock-climber scientist skeptic yoga ux

@u weird autotweets

@v William Lawrence – vê, vé, ℣, vrijeđati, versus, višeobličje, vruć, vođa all stand for veeliam. And, he stands for accessibility.

@w (inactive)

@x gene x – photographer and friend of lemurs

@y (inactive)

@z Zach Brock – I’m mostly made of water. I was a Pivot. Now I’m a Square.