
Prepare For The Facebook Vanity URL Landrush - peter123
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/31/prepare-for-the-facebook-vanity-url-landrush/?awesm=tcrn.ch_2tJ&utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_content=techcrunch-autopost&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=direct-tcrn.ch
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zach
Is it weird that I still don't use GMail much because my customary username
(not this one) was taken by the time I finagled an invite? I don't really have
a second choice, so I just stick with Yahoo! Mail. I guess I'm more vain than
I think...

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axod
OTOH, If it's a commonish name/nick, you have to endure countless incorrect
emails from people who have you confused with someone else.

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johns
I don't have a particularly unique name, but I get 5-10 emails to the wrong
people per week.

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edd
I know in the tech community its nice to be able to link together all of your
different 'profiles' so that people can find them. However, I really don't see
this as being a feature that 'normal' people will use. When was the last time
you actually visited someone's profile page without following a link for them
off either your news feed or a friends profile? Unless Facebook's game is to
try and move away from the 'friendship' model and open the whole system up.

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pj
When you want to visit Facebook itself, do you type in <http://69.63.184.142/>
or <http://www.facebook.com>? User friendly will win in the end.

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gnaritas
Neither, I click the facebook bookmark on my toolbar.

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Shamiq
Should Facebook sell vanity URLs? If they do, should they allow a secondary
market?

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andrewl-hn
Russian Facebook clone (Vkontakte.ru) sells vanity URLs for a price about 1k
euros. I'm not sure about the official reselling policy, though.

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baddox
This doesn't seem in the spirit of what Facebook is (or perhaps was). The idea
with Facebook for the average user was that only your friends (i.e. actual
friends irl) could see your full profile, and others searching for you would
just see a bit of info and a picture. Of course, that's changing now with
celebrity and corporate fan pages, so I'm sure they're just trying to adapt,
but I think they're getting away from the service they originally provided. I
suppose to do that is to risk failure while hoping for the reward of becoming
a broader service.

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huhtenberg
peter123, what's up with the tracking stuff in the URL ?

 _www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/31/prepare-for-the-facebook-vanity-url-
landrush/?awesm=tcrn.ch_2tJ &utm_campaign=techcrunch&utm_content=techcrunch-
autopost&utm_medium=tcrn.ch-twitter&utm_source=direct-tcrn.ch_

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riklomas
It looks like Techcrunch are using a URL shortening tool at <http://awe.sm>
for their <http://tcrn.ch> domain. The utm_* is for Google Analytics tracking.
I imagine peter123 didn't mean to submit the whole URL, but just got to the
article through the shortener

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nazgulnarsil
I call facebook.com/myspace

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zackattack
I could see this being useful if Facebook evolves into more of a LinkedIn;
people could put their Facebook URLs onto their business cards.

Also, when I meet a stranger, it would definitely be easier to find them if I
could just go directly to their vanity URL, which might be more mnemonically
accessible.

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TweedHeads
I wish I could downvote propaganda.

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sho
Fuck facebook. No seriously, who gives a shit.

~~~
sho
I guess I have an answer to my rhetorical question: those modding me down give
a shit : D

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pj
If Facebook really cared about their users, this feature would have been
available a long time ago.

