It’s been about a week now since Facebook launched their whole Vanity URL option and everybody seems to be talking about it. Everybody, that is, except your average, everyday Facebooker. The Facebookers who sneak on at work even though it’s ‘banned’. The Facebookers who aren’t particularly tech-savvy but just as into new, fun Internet-web (which is what my dad calls all this new fangled stuff) tricks. You know the ones.

So this post is for those of you who haven’t actually heard of Facebook Vanity URLs or aren’t too sure what they are.

A Facebook Vanity URL is basically your own personal URL minus all the costs and back end admin of setting up an actual website, using the Facebook domain as a space to show off your individual take on how websites should be named. So, for example, until now your Facebook profile will have looked something like this: www.facebook.com/php?id=500065899. Not very personal. Or inspiring. But by making up your own URL you can now be www.facebook.com/iamcleverandbeautifulandtoosexyfortheoldfacebook. It is a bit like a tattoo, though, in that once you’ve chosen your username you won’t be able to change it or transfer it. (So maybe I won’t choose www.facebook.com/myasslooksfatinallpants after all. I mean, I could just be having a bad day, couldn’t I? Surely my ass doesn’t really look fat in all pants?)

Facebook usernames will be available in basic text forms, must be at least five characters in length and can only include alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9), or a full stop (”.”). Facebook are also trying to figure out how to support non-Romanized characters, so if you want something a little less prosaic watch this space.

Meanwhile, for those web-fiends who knew all about Facebook Vanity URLs and their exact launch time (the middle of a weekend night, which meant a whole bunch of geeks decided to forego a social life in favour of waiting glued to their computer screens), apparently it was a veritable landrush as people tried to grab their ‘first come first served’ vanity URL. You’d think they could have come up with better names than these though:

http://www.facebook.com/moc.koobecaf.www – ooh, very clever: mirror-mirror, vanity. We get it.
http://www.facebook.com/alksjfalskjfoiwefalsdlasfaslleseouaiwejndlsknjkdfs – because that’s going to be easy to remember.
http://www.facebook.com/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa – who knew trying to find a username would be as painful as childbirth?
http://www.facebook.com/JackBauercouldwhoopChuckNorris – I don’t think so.

It’s all very silly really, but nothing wrong with a bit of silliness.

PS. Did you know that the Swahili version of Facebook has just been launched? Facebook is now available in around 50 language versions and clever analyst types reckon it could be launched in Hausa and Zulu next.

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