So it appears that video rental giant Netflix is currently embroiled in a potentially embarrassing battle over the Twitter handle @Qwikster, which is the new name for its DVD rental service.

The handle is currently owned by Jason Castillo, who created it in April after appearing to have forgotten the login details for his previous unspecified handle.  His first Tweet simply states his annoyance at having to create a new account and that he “needs to write stuff down” as he “aint doing this again”.

However, his disorganisation may prove to be quite profitable, as a similar case concerning the Twitter handle @Israel saw Floridian Israel Melendez received a five-figure sum for his account.  Hopefully my own disorganisation will be equally rewarded after losing the spare key for my car, although I’m not entirely sure how to go about this.

What‘s particularly interesting to me about this story are the potential implications for Netflix.  Since announcing the Qwikster rename, Castillo’s account suddenly gained an unexpected spike of new followers in their thousands.  When you consider that @Qwikster’s Tweets mostly contain an army of spelling mistakes, profanity and references to marijuana use, you can imagine that this doesn’t convey the kind of social media communication that Netflix was perhaps intending.

On the flip side, you have to wonder how much of this was actually the “grave mistake” European Domain Centre Director Christopher Laursen purports it to be.  It seems almost impossible for a company as tech-savvy as Netflix to leave what should be one of their biggest social communication channels in the hands of an off-colour grammar murderer, particularly when considering that Qwikster.com was registered by Netflix in May 2010.

But in doing exactly this they have definitely generated a buzz.  The near-sensationalism of Castillo’s Tweets has got Twitter, the US and indeed the world talking about this apparent oversight.  Surely that’s what marketing is all about?

For me Twitter user @RossRegan sums it up best: “@Qwikster is either the best viral marketing tool ever or our new global village idiot”.

Now about my spare key…