Hear ye, hear ye…listen up Facebook users!
It’s time to re-arrange your schedule for this Friday night June 12th, 2009. It would be a really good idea to be at your computer, online, … ready to grab your “Real Name ” in what is likely to be the biggest Viral Land Rush in history!
Beginning at midnight ET…actually 12:01 AM Saturday morning… 9:01 PST, you will be able to register a ‘vanity url’ for your Facebook page. Instead of your page link being the monstrosity is now is.. something like - facebook.com/profile.php?id=987654321&ref=profile, it can be - facebook.com/jane.doe. Yeah!!
However…the catch is that these new vanity URLs are being bestowed on a first-come, first-served basis. Not so much of a big deal if your name is Herkimer Vasilaniturnmocker. HOWEVER, if your name is something like Peter Smith, name variations will be snapped up quickly to be sure.
So here are the rules from of the Facebook blog:
- Usernames must be at least 5 characters long
- Usernames must be alphanumeric (a-z, 0-9) with the only exception being a period
- Usernames are permanent and non-transferable
- No obscenities allowed
- In order to prevent abuse, any new user profiles (created after 3 pm ET on June 9) won’t be immediately eligible (they’ll have to wait until June 28th)
Good idea on the last rule here, so folks aren’t picking up names with the motive to sell them later…
Ok, gang…this is what to do -
Registering Your Username
Login to your Facebook account, then go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ on or after Friday, June 12, 2009 at 9:01 Pacific Time [that's Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 12:01am Eastern Time].
You will see a form that this:
Either choose the name Facebook suggests, or type your own in, then click the Set Username.
Get ready, get set….and good luck to the Facebook Servers, all….
