There’s no telling how long this will be possible, so if you’ve been thinking about changing your Twitter username, why not do it in the first week of 2009? There are good reasons for doing this. If you’re like me, your initial impulse was to create an anonymous handle like your old AOL account (e.g., MayorMcCheese), or an abbreviated version of your name ( e.g., mcheese). This helped you get started on Twitter, but it’s now starting to look silly. You’ll notice that many popular Twitter users are using their own names, or a very recognizable version of their names, as their Twitter handle.

The thing is, Twitter is first and foremost a conversation. People just feel better having a conversation with ‘JohnSmith’ as opposed to ‘KlingonRulez,’ plus if you are hoping to use Twitter as a professional or business development tool, you should consider that having a Twitter name that reflects your actual name is part of extending your personal brand.

But you say, ‘I don’t want people to know who I am or what I am saying! What if it comes back to haunt me in the future?’ To that, I can only say that the social web is probably not the place for you. Alias or not, you should only post content you’d be comfortable with your employer or customers reading, and that goes for all media on the internet. Keep it professional and above board, and you will only improve your personal brand.

Now then, down to brass tacks. How do you change your Twitter name? At this time, Twitter doesn’t lock your user name when you set up the account. You can change it right now, but what would happen if someone went looking for your old Twitter page? Your best bet is to create a new account with the old name, but leave one post redirecting people to your new Twitter page. It’s really a shell game, and it goes like this:

1. Create a new account with your new account name. You will need to use a secondary e-mail address. If you are successful, this ensures that your chosen name is available. (E.g., ‘JohnSmith’)
2. Log in to your old Twitter account and go to Settings. Change the Username value to your new chosen name, plus an extra character, like 2. (E.g., ‘JohnSmith2′).
3. Log in to your new Twitter account and change the Username to your old one (E.g., ‘KlingonRulez’). Create a single post that says ‘You can find all my posts at http://twitter.com/[new username].
4. Log in to your old Twitter account and change the Username to your new chosen name by removing the ‘2′ (E.g., ‘JohnSmith’)

That’s it! All your old tweets will be preserved under the new username, and the old one will still be around, pointing people in the right direction.