Bandwidth and most likely patience will be tested on Facebook this Friday evening. The world’s #1 social networking site will be allowing users to select vanity URLs starting Friday at 9 PM PST, and a mad dash to claim the most desirable usernames is expected.
MySpace has been using vanity URLs since their launch, as have Twitter and LinkedIn, and the change will certainly make swapping Facebook details easier. Another goal for Facebook might be ranking higher in organic search. Actual names will clearly rank higher than the list of numbers currently occupying individual Facebook pages. Maybe Facebook hopes to sneak ahead of other networks for name or company search results. And those who want to be most searchable should be first in line.
As someone with a very common first name to go with my equally common last name, I may have to be ready as the clock strikes midnight in New York. A future of having a year or birthday or favorite number tacked onto my user name for Facebook eternity doesn’t thrill me. I, along with countless others including the Facebook PR team, will be hoping the level of disappointment is low. Get ready for www.facebook.com/chrishunt729!
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=90316352130
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“Over 3 Million Usernames Claimed…In the first three minutes, about 200,000 usernames were registered. In fifteen minutes, users had picked out half a million custom URLs. Within one hour, over 1 million Facebook usernames had been snapped up.”
More here: http://tinyurl.com/lcwazl
I guess the question is so what? I get the indexing thing etc., but for 99.9999% of FB users, who really cares? Just saying……..