But on Facebook, currently I’m http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=716098588. Ugh. Not exactly a memorable URL. But all this is changing at 12:01am this Saturday, June 13. At that time, you’ll be able to create a vanity URL for your profile. You guessed it; I’m hoping very much to be http://www.facebook.com/jmpineda. Perhaps more importantly, I want a vanity URL for the Matrix Group fan page, which is currently at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matrix-Group-International-Inc/48658676723. (The Matrix Group Facebook fan URL is so long and unfriendly that I have to access my bookmarks to share it with others.)
Vanity URLs, also known as addressable identities, will sure make it easy for all of us to share our Facebook profiles with others and encourage friending and fanning (are friending and fanning real verbs these days?)
The Facebook blog has this to say about the rules for creating a username:
- Facebook usernames will be available in basic text forms.
- You can only choose a single username for your profile and for each of the Pages that you administer.
- Your username must be at least five characters in length and only include alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9), or a period or full stop (“.”).
So, if you have a relatively common name or you want to more easily share the URL for your personal or company Facebook page, be sure to stay up and get your new username/vanity URL/addressable identity on Facebook on June 13 (yep, it’s only a day away.)
Good luck and please report back on this blog about the experience — did you get the name you wanted, did you have any trouble on the site?
Update from Joanna on January 14, 2010:
It seems Facebook has changed it policies again. Good news! Now you only need 25 fans to apply for a vanity URL. Check out:
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=15073
9 replies on “Get Your Vanity URL on Facebook On June 13, 12:01am”
Mashable had an article and an update about this earlier this week.
http://mashable.com/2009/06/11/facebook-page-usernames-2/
It looks like vanity URL’s for small businesses will not be available until June 28. To be able to get a vanity page tomorrow your page needs 1,000 fans.
Facebook has put up a FAQ to answer a lot of the questions this initiative has generated.
It is located here:
http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=896
One of the interesting items is that you must have had 1000+ fans of your page before May 31, 2009 in order to register a name right away. If you have less than 1k fans, you will have to wait until June 28th.
Thanks so much for the note about a fan page needing 1,000 fans. I guess Facebook wants to give priority to companies and brands with a lot of followers. I sure hope the name I want for Matrix Group will be available come June 28!
BTW, for those of you logging in tonight to get a vanity username, here is the URL where you need to go:
http://www.facebook.com/username/
I got it! I got http://www.Facebook.com/jmpineda – yippee!
No problem getting in right away — facebook.com/markalves
i got http://www.facebook.com/makikato 🙂
No problems getting in for either. I was on the countdown page, the page refreshed, I hit Continue, I typed in the name I wanted and I was done in less than 10 seconds. Nice!
Facebook changed its policy from 1,000 fans to 100 fans and I found out too late. Facebook should NOT be changing its policies on people like that!
At any rate, I’m happy to report that I got http://www.Facebook.com/MatrixGroup for the Matrix Group fan page! Yippee!
It seems Facebook has changed it policies again. Good news! Now you only need 25 fans to apply for a vanity URL. Check out:
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=15073
So get out there and get a vanity URL for your company’s fan page!