Facebook Vanity

By Lauren Sigel on June 11th, 2009 • Facebook, Life

Starting at midnight Eastern time on Saturday (June 13th), Facebookers around the world will be able to personalize their URLs. This means that the URL for your Facebook Pages and profile will no longer be a randomly assigned number. The idea behind this change is that Facebook is trying to make it easier to find people via search engines while boosting its Internet traffic.

Let's try an example. Say you are trying to find your friend Matt from high school. You type his name in the Google search bar and voila! It finds Matt, but it also finds 999 other Matts. However, when everyone has picked a Facebook username, that will no longer be an issue. Once Matt becomes bassethoundlover101, you will be able to type his username into a search engine searchbar and be able to find him immediately. Gone are the days of picking through hundreds people with the same name.

So if you have a username that you are burning to use, you better snag it quick. The new usernames for profiles and Facebook Pages are being offered on a first-come, first-serve basis, and squishysmurf354 might not be available for very long. Once you pick your new URL, make sure you like it, because once it's set you wont be able change it. Not allowing users to change or transfer URLs is to designed to prevent a username black market.

Also, if you were thinking of nabbing usernames like facebook.com/bradpitt, forget about it. Hundreds of vanity URLs have already been given out to celebrities and other prominent people on Facebook such as President Obama, according to the Inside Facebook blog.

According to Facebook's eligibility requirements, if you joined Facebook after 3 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, June 9, 2009, you will need to wait until Sunday, June 28, 2009 to become eligible to claim a username. This is to prevent people from creating new accounts just to take advantage of reserving a username.

Only Facebook Pages with over 1,000 fans before May 31st will be able to choose a username.

I will be sitting at my computer watching the clock with my fingers quivering anxiously over my keyboard. I've got my username picked out, do you?

--Lauren

PS: While you're on Facebook, make sure to check out brass' Facebook page.

Photo taken from this photostream and used with permission of a Creative Commons license.