To Javier domain and tweet it, too
Spanish man scoops up Twitter handles to return them to rightful owners
Officially, Javier Castaño is a 50year-old shoeshine guy at a café in Malaga, Spain. But in his off-hours, he serves as the secret guardian of some of Twitter’s most desirable geographic handles: @canada, @japan, @rome, @madrid — even, for a brief time, @NY.
The story of how Castaño came to own (and later, not own) these highprofile accounts is almost as random as Twitter itself. In a former life, he was a graphic designer and artist. But when he lost his job during Spain’s economic downturn, he turned to shoeshining — keeping one eye on the Internet, his true interest.
When Barack Obama got a Twitter account, on March 7, 2007, Castaño immediately registered his own, too — even though Twitter wouldn’t go mainstream for several years.
Looking around that early, empty Twitter landscape, Castaño realized that many of Spain’s largest cities, not to mention several foreign cities and countries, hadn’t claimed their handles yet. Convinced that Twitter would one day be big, Castaño snapped them all up . . . and then began the long, tiring quest of giving them all back.
See, Castaño isn’t your standard Twitter-handle squatter — one of those obnoxious ne’er-do-wells who nab big-name accounts just to hold them for ransom or turn them into cheap tourism marketing. Castaño insists he only registered the ac- counts to prevent squatters from grabbing them.
“All the content of Twitter.com belongs to Twitter’s owners,” Castaño explained in a tweet. “Who am I to sell little bits of the domain to anyone?”
Instead, Castaño has spent years trying to return accounts such as @RiodeJaneiro and @Canada to the government organizations that would best use them. In 2012, he entrusted @Andalucia to the local authorities. He also made contact with Martha McLean, who handled digital communications for Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, and passed that account to her. @Canada’s stereotypical first tweet went out last fall after a long planning period: “@Canada’s now on Twitter, eh!”
“Only Japan remains — for the Japanese,” a satisfied Castaño said.
Asked what he plans to do once @japan has been claimed, which would represent the end of a project he’s laboured at for years, he said he will probably still shine shoes.
He does still have his own Twitter handle, @xabel, from which he continues tweeting at the Japanese gov- ernment and anyone else who will listen.
“I hope that the Japanese authorities will contact you,” a fan tweeted at him.
“Thanks,” Castaño fired back. “It looks like it will soon be possible.” Two smileys.