Get Your Vanity URL on Facebook On June 13, 12:01am

by Joanna Pineda Posted on June 11, 2009

Facebook logo Whenever I sign up for something, I try to get jpineda@matrixgroup.net as my username and jmpineda as the account name. I’m jmpineda on Twitter, Yahoo!, Delicious, FoodBuzz, FriendFeed, etc.  For example, you can browse my Delicious account by going to http://delicious.com/jmpineda.  You can follow me on Twitter by going to http://twitter.com/jmpineda.

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:

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”

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/

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