Friendly URLs become available this Friday night/Saturday morning.
This Saturday morning at 12:00 am EDT (Friday night for most of the United States), Facebook will let users create “friendly URLs” for their profiles. So instead of the current facebook.com/blahblahnumbersnumberblah, you will be able to get Facebook.com/yourname or something similar.
A lot of people have pointed to Twitter ‘usernames’ as the next type of domain squatting. Facebook is taking steps to prevent that. First, profiles can never be transferred. Second, the company has a trademark policy. And finally, anyone who created a Facebook account after username availability was announced will not be able to select a username during the initial launch. However, news of the username scheme leaked prior to yesterday’s official announcement, so it will be interesting to see if this latter mechanism is useful.
Facebook friendly URLs will make it easier to put a Facebook URL on your business card or in emails. Of course, savvy users can already just use a forwarding URL to link to their profiles. I think the biggest impact will be for companies with Facebook pages, as they will now be able to advertise them more effectively. In a TV commercial, they’ll be able to advertise Facebook.com/companyname. (A number of big companies already had friendly usernames and URLs prior to general availability.)
At the Previous Post says
“Your username must be at least five characters in length and only include alphanumeric characters:” This is not good for the Mike’s, Joe’s Ann’s, and Tim’s of facebook. Frankly, I’m disappointed as both my first name and business acronym is less than five characters.
Andrew Allemann says
“Frankly, I’m disappointed as both my first name and business acronym is less than five characters.”
Gmail had similar restrictions. Made it hard to get the domain I wanted.
Marty says
Here is what Facebook says regarding Company/Product pages, “Your Facebook Page must meet two requirements: it must be live on Facebook prior to the May 31, 2009 cut-off date and have a minimum 1,000 fans as of May 31, 2009.” Some helpful information to know.
Andrew Allemann says
1,000 fans? That sucks.
David J Castello says
I like this because it educates the masses about the value of a URL at a grassroots level. Most of the non-business public (in other words – most of the public) doesn’t have a clue about how a URL can promote their life or business on even the most basic level.
Andrew Allemann says
I guess I’ll have to log on from D.C. at midnight Friday night. Hopefully I won’t be inebriated.
David J Castello says
You’ll be inebriated on Saturday night 🙂
Andrew Allemann says
Hope so 🙂
Adam says
Has anyone ever seen Andrew inebriated? That I gotta see.
nebben says
Hosting a virtual party to commemorate Fb’s vanity URLs. Just use #fburlparty in a tweet to be featured on this page, http://bit.ly/10xK1W.
Robert says
For those who were left out, please support this: http://twitition.com/vqthq