got my facebook username vanity url
facebook, geek, social June 15th, 2009On Saturday 13th June 2009 I got up just before 5:00 a.m. and fired up my web browser. Surprisingly enough, this isn’t what I usually do at that time on a Saturday morning. The reason? Facebook launched it’s username vanity URLs at 5:01 a.m. BST (12:01 a.m. EDT) on Saturday, June 13 and I wanted to grab mine.
Facebook username vanity URLs are a new feature on Facebook that allows users and (some) businesses to have a readable, recognisable URL to access their profile page. So instead of:
Facebook - Old profile URL
…you have the much more readable:
Facebook - New profile URL
These URLs were to be handed out in a first-come-first-served basis, starting at precisely 12:01 a.m. EDT, by going to the the http://facebook.com/username page and logging in to your Facebook account. There was bound to be a “land grab” of vanity URLs and indeed Facebook reported that 345,000 of them were created within 5 minutes of the facility going live. I use the /johngirvin URL on social sites if possible and I wanted to be sure of grabbing it ahead of the other John Girvins on Facebook.
I don’t know if any of my namesakes actually wanted it, but I know I did. I didn’t want to be /jgirvin, /johngirvin1 or anything like that. Nothing but pure /johngirvin would be satisfactory. Geeky and a little bit pathetic, but that’s vanity for you.
Sitting poised at the keyboard with “johngirvin” held safely in the clipboard for quick and error free entry (you only get one chance, and it was pre-coffee 5:01 a.m.), I watched the countdown timer drop from 3 minutes to zero and filled in the forms with extreme prejudice. The site was very responsive – I’d half expected Facebook to crumple under the sudden load – and the whole procedure took less than 30 seconds.
Grabbed my Facebook username vanity URL
My early start had paid off, http://facebook.com/johngirvin was mine. Happyface. Back to bed.
Quite a few people were more creative with their choice of username. My personal favourites would be http://www.facebook.com/Default.aspx , http://www.facebook.com/.htaccess and http://www.facebook.com/can.kiss.my.ass. I expect their profiles have got a lot of hits in the past few days!
Get your own Facebook username vanity URL at http://facebook.com/username
John Girvin is a software engineer, sci-fi buff, cyclist and retrocomputer fan (ie: nerd) from Belfast, Northern Ireland.
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June 15th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Nice work. I left it far too late and am now http://www.facebook.com/john.self1 – pathetic I know. My only consolation is that I don’t think I have ever actually referred anyone to my Facebook profile via URL or any other way and probably never will.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:30 am
A quick check on Facebook shows there are at least a hundred times more John Selfs than John Girvins on there, so I think you probably did well to even get the “1″!