At 12:01 a.m. Saturday, you can claim a name for life at Facebook
9:37 PM Fri, Jun 12, 2009 | Permalink
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Projo Subterranean Homepage NewsBottom-up journalism from the pros: News, tech and culture by Sheila Lennon |
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Facebook Vanity URLs: 10 Things You Need to Know. Nuts and bolts from InfoWorld about the scramble to change Facebook Web addresses from http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789 to http://www.facebook.com/my.name
Not surprising: 10. Your Facebook username may be used for more things in the future. This may be your last chance to disappear. 7 Pieces of Helpful Advice on Picking Your New Facebook Username Comedy Central's Tosh.0 Blog: Like the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 before it, Saturday, June 13th at 12:01 a.m. EDT will be one of the most important moments in the history of all of time. Remember, it's Comedy Central. At that exact moment, social networking site Facebook will allow users to register dedicated usernames, meaning you can finally have a URL for your profile that will make sense to other human beings. Won't your business card look that much cleaner! Facebook casts this a privilege. There are many ways to look at it. Here's one I wouldn't have thought of. The Bizarre Brouhaha Over Facebook Usernames in the Atlantic. 4 CommentsLeave a comment |
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Sheila,
Help! Please!
I feel so ignorant and totally out of it. I read the info on your posted links and am still in the dark.
Why would I or anyone want a name that I would have to be stuck with for life or after-life?
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Well, it's just another username at one of your Web addresses, a bit like the email address you're probably stuck with -- maybe for life and beyond!
But it's gargantuan Facebook, and people can now actually give others a rememberable address to their Facebook profile: "Facebook me! My Name!" will ring out in parking lots. Aggreassive networkers are rejoicing. Early adopters are crowing about getting exclusive use of "facebook.com/mary" -- just their first name, same as when the Web was young.
I did think about this in the bathroom for a few minutes before midnight, thought about taking facebook.com/sheila, but I don't want a vanity-plate name at Facebook, I'm no insider there. It's a message drop -- postcards from people I know, offering news about their lives.
It's at least a glass house, every word published, recorded and stored. Maybe it's more.
So I decided to take facebook.com/sheila.lennon, the dot (functioning as space) a courtesy to the search engines, telling them it matches those same two words they've already collected elsewhere around the Web.
I don't mind having a stable public persona.
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Thank you very much, Sheila.
I'm not sure that I quite understand the advantage of the new permanent username. Wouldn't people find it harder to find you with facebook.com/sheila.lennon?
I thought of facebook.com/touchapin (touchapin was my initial first name, given by my erudite father), but I'm afraid that would complicate people's lives when they want to find me, wouldn't it?
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It's only Facebook, where people really find you by actually searching your name.
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