The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
n. A sequence of characters, different from a password, that is used as identification and is required when logging on to a multiuser computer system, LAN, bulletin board system, or online service. Also called user ID.
n. A person's identification on an individual computer system.
Word Usage
"You can type a direct message into the "What's happening?" box on your homepage, however this time instead of starting the message with "@username" like you do for a reply, you can instead remove the @ sign and replace it with the letter d (for direct) and a space, for example "d username.""