Facebook Vanity URLs … Get ’em While They are Available

In case you haven’t heard yet (although that’s hard to believe), this past Friday Facebook launched vanity URLs to their subscribers.

What does this mean for you?

Well, much like Twitter does already by allowing you to direct followers to a url that looks something like this //www.twitter.com/VoomVentures so too does Facebook now.

If you have a Facebook profile you can now set a username for that profile and turn your previously long numbered link into a shorter more meaningful one. So what used to be //www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1234567890 now might look like this //www.facebook.com/YourNameHere.

If you have created a Facebook Page then you may have to wait for a vanity url. Currently, Facebook is only allowing Pages to select a vanity url if they have over 1000 fans as of May 31, 2009. Word has it that restriction will be lifted near the end of July 2009 and Facebook will enable anyone with a Page to reserve vanity url.

Statistics show that during the first 3 minutes after launch the site had already reserved over 200,000 names and after 15 more minutes went over the 500,000 mark. After one hour it went over the 1,000,000 mark and that continues to climb.

In short, if you haven’t reserved your url yet you might want to do it (providing the one you want isn’t already taken now). You can reserve your Facebook username here.

Facebook surpassed MySpace as the largest social network last year sometime and continues to explode. Now with yet one more previously missing link added (the ability for Facebook users to choose a unique vanity url) they look poised to stay on top for a while and have now put a stranglehold on Twitter. Both could be considered a form of micro-blogging with Facebook offering a large variety more of “social applications”.

So if you have a store and associated Facebook profile or Page you should consider reserving a username of your choosing before it’s too late. It would be a shame to have marketed your business and developed a name for yourself only to have another person come in and lay claim to a domain with your company name in it.