We were the first to tell you about the Facebook vanity URL landrush, and we’re going to guide you across the finish line. And don’t worry, I declined to participate in the journalist program that would have given me my name in advance. I’ll be right there with you, battling for the name I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life. Ok, that was a little dramatic. But it is a final decision – after you pick one, you can’t change or transfer it.
At 9 pm PST you’ll be able to log in and claim your new name. Go to facebook.com/username and log into Facebook. You’ll see a tool like the one below to pick a permanent Facebook URL:
Usernames much be in basic text, at least 5 characters long, and include only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9), or a period or full stop (”.”).
When you get your name, the next step is to leave a comment below with your new URL (yep, we want to see it) and then become a Fan of the TechCrunch Facebook page. Ok, to be honest, that last step is optional and probably has very little impact on you getting the vanity URL you really want. But it won’t hurt, either.
I thought you joined in on the journalistic program Mike?
At least that is what I got out of your last paragraph on the journalistic post.
i decided not to for purely selfish reasons. they gave use a pre-arranged name that you couldn’t change. They selected mikearrington for me, and since my name is actually michael, i thought i’d try things out on my own.
Now that you have posted this, what are the odds that one of your evil stalkers will try to get the name “michaelarrington” before you?
I wish you luck, and hope you win.
you are assuming that I want michaelarrington or some other variation of my name.
There are weirdos who comment on mashable with the name “MichaelArringtonTrollNation.” If you don’t take it, a weirdo will.
Not if I beat you to it!
prearranged without any sort of choice. /michael would be cool tool.
Got mine
http://facebook.com/peterurban
It’s a bummer though that we can’t claim usernames yet for fan pages that are established recently or didn’t have massive amounts of fans before.
And mine is http://facebook.com/mirceagoia
Actually, thanks to this post I found out how to get the username (I usually keep myself logged in – checked the Remember login – so I couldn’t see this username option right away. i had to log out and login again…)
Interesting, it does not matter if you have period in the middle or not. Very smart of Facebook.
for example. http://www.face....com/mike.davis = http://www.face...k.com/mikedavis
Well done facebook. Pull it off really well.
Yeah! I got Facebook.com/alex.wilhelm, and Facebook.com/AlexWilhelm works as well. Bad programming?
I got that as well. Does it just hold it until someone claims it without a period, or do we get it forever! Inquiring minds want to know…
Actually I love it. Because i would hate to have facebook.com/mike.davis and have someone else have facebook.com/mikedavis.
It will totally mess things up. If it was intentional, they did a great job.
Yikes! Grabbed one for my blog.
I thought of grabbing few more by creating fake accounts but sadly FB not allowing accounts created after June 9 have their vanity URL r8 now.
Regards,
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
I have a friends account open – It’s launching at 5:01AM here and he went to bed – and my own, I’m going for a pretty bitching name and so is he, I’m doubtful I’ll get mine but his is secure.
Dual screens come in handy for this, got the countdown on my secondary so I won’t miss it
I just realised how sad I sounded in that comment, shame it’s 100% accurate.
Dual screens are indeed awesome. You can read techcrunch and play Left4dead at the same time.
(2nd keyboard and arms not included)
I’d be doing exactly that if my graphics card could handle dual and L4D at the same time, I have disable my second to get >20FPS. Luckily I’m upgrading to a high end card and 3 x 22″ monitors soon, that’ll be so awesome.
5 letters? Um…So what am I supposed to do?
Um, maybe first and last name? Now Cher is the one who’s really screwed.
If that were the case then so would Sting, Flea (red hot chilli peppers bass player) Bono, Probably a few others. I’m sure they don’t really care that much – one advantage of being famous – and can get some one else to deal with it for them.
… But Sting is 5 letters.
Also, his real name is “Gordon.”
“so would Sting”
He would, would he?
Evann ?
Evann ?
Evanr – all the cool techies just add r.
But I just want my first name.
contact them? I’m sure they’d be willing to do it if you get in first.
Taken
http://www.facebook.com/evan
It wasn’t taken before either, which is why I had my hopes up. It wasn’t taken up to yesterday.
you have their contact information? can’t seem to find out how to contact them about the usernames
Don’t contact them, they are not going to bend the rules for you (though they might have at least made the rule 4 characters instead of 5 so that they didn’t end up making exceptions to the same rules for employees like /mike and /evan
How about facebook.com/just.evan ?
facebook.com/evan.
facebook.com/.evan
are these allowed?
No.
No.
if i added an r to my name, people would think that i sacrificed my life for the greater good. (but i didn’t)
Check for usernames that might be already taken… I tried “bobby” and *surprisingly* it is not available.
What if you are happy with the user name you already have? Does it get automaticly revised by Facebook?
don’t think you have to sign up to one if you want profileid?=12345
so mikearrington is available? hmmmmm. 1 hour and 16 min left til I become the king of new media.
LOL
There are multiple levels of fascinating here, but for some of the wrong reasons. This isn’t really news… myspace did this long time ago, www dot social-network-site-name dot com forward slash your-username.
Personally I don’t care because I’m not on facebook, but it’s interesting to know because my friends are and I might just log in [for them] and reserve their book names before they lose them, and if my friends appreciate my attention, I’ll proxy than you as well
fooey! LOL
How about me!!! (,”) – oh well
Michael
use your twitter name including the word “at” “atmichael”
that must be the reason no @ are allowed… “editor” always works.. Pretty sad though.. I’m 44 with 4 kids and on a Friday night I have my iphone alarm scheduled to get a good name.. and when you want to take something from Mark… it should have the words new issue and prospectus involved not a priority handle!
What is the best username to get for SEO purposes?
If people will search for you by just firstname and lastname….
firstname.lastname?
firstname-lastname?
firstnamelastname?
Bump.
I would go for firstname.lastname
But, again, this is not the only thing that is “in play” for search engines/SEO. However, facebook.com/firstname STILL could rank you high for Firstname Lastname searches. There are many factors you need to consider in this:
1) What’s your name?
2) Do many people have this name? Do a simple search. Find out the competition.
3) How about on Facebook? Narrow it down.
Simple things like the above will help you out in determining if you even need firstname.lastname (or something of the sort) instead of something simpler.
Definitely not the last one. Google says hyphens (http://www.yout...h?v=Q3SFVfDIS5k).
adam,
from my research, firstnamelastname is the way to go, and if someone trys to go to firstname.lastname, it’ll redirect you.
for instance, try going to mark.zucker.. versus markzucker, or blaise, or whatever
Yesterday ‘travis’ wasn’t taken but now it is.
That’s ok, I have a couple alternatives.
I’ve been checking my choice repeatedly, 35 mins to go and it’s still available. So is my friends, looking good for me and him, yay.
Remember, this evening there will a rush to this site to claim vanity urls, so it’s best to have a contingency plan in place if your preferred name is not available.
1. Bandwidth – close all web applications you don’t needs, such as Limewire and Mininova. This is not the time to be fighting for bandwidth.
2. Login to Facebook – Don’t waste time logging into Facebook when it goes live. Do it now.
3. Facebook Registration page – open a tab in your browser for registering Facebook Vanity.
http://www.face...k.com/username/
4. Open Notepad – type in the 5 Facebook usernames you want to register. Again, we are assuming that the first will not be available, so you have your backups ready. Don’t use Word as cutting and pasting into Facebook may cause unseen characters (like white spaces) to enter the registrations forms and ruin things for you.
5. Example of Facebook vanity username variations
I’ll try to get Ivan Walsh but if that’s not available here are the variations I will try to get.
1st option – IvanJWalsh – James is my third middle name
2nd option – IvanWalshMD – as I want people to know that I’m a qualified doctor
You could change this to any industry qualification, such as CBA or MS.
3rd option – IvanWalshBlogger – if I want people to know that I’m a professional blogger.
You could change this to any career or business role.
4th option – IvanWalshDirector – if I want people to know that I’m the director of an organization. You could change this to any other job title.
5th option – IvanWalshPHD – if I want people to know that I’m a qualified PHD or other academic qualification.
6. Mistake – IvanAWalsh – this would be a mistake as Ivana is a female name. Anthony is my middle name for this would just lead to confusion.
7. Test it – log out of Facebook and see if the Facebook vanity url you registered actually works!
If not, try again.
I think Facebook will crash tonight, maybe a few times, so be patient and keep trying.
Best of luck
Ivan
dammit!!!! facebook.com/adam was just nabbed by a Facebook guy. grrr, I speak for all named “adam” when I say “he is a lucky bastard!”
I know there it is five letter minimum, but still.
Amen!
happened to me too
you wouldn’t have been able to get it anyway because its only 4 characters. the minimum is 5. for some reason, the facebook employees don’t follow that rule!
Oh yeah, upon further testing I noticed they are doing just like Google. Puttin a . (period) in the name really means nothing. The username ‘travis’ and ‘t.ravis’ are the same.
Yup.. you’re exactly correct.
it’s 30 more minutes and counting and i havent figure out what i would want to pick. the name that will stuck with me for the rest of my adult life!!!!
Can you pick something generic like construction, or real estate or like facebook.com/mortgage ?
It’s sad how anxious I am to get this over with, whether I get my first choice or not. I’ve got butterflies!
How long until it goes live?
15 mins.
http://www.facebook.com/google is still available
going to the URL doesn’t justify availability. Companies/brands with trademarks were given the opportunity to send in emails to get their trademarks on a blacklist.
PST = November to March = Pacific Standard Time
PDT = March to November = Pacific Daylight Time
I picked up vanity urls for a few of my company’s pages weeks back and that made sense to me. Big enough brand, trademarks, specific urls, etc…
But for the entire world to try at once. It’s going to be a fun one. Thankfully my last name is unique.
what’s ur last name, i promise will make it hard for u
anyone going for /myspace? ;D /holocaustdidnthappen?
5 mins ladies… is it bad to be excited? ugh i need to get a life
3 minutes!
Can’t believe I am up at 5:00AM for this..
Snap. Anticipation is killing me, 1 min 30 to go
http://www.face...com/anna.hirsch
sweet
http://facebook.com/knauer
http://www.face...om/patrick.daly
facebook.com/kobig
Horray
http://www.face...om/iancarpenter
Got facebook.com/davidturnbull
Sweet.
Yes, I’m a geek!
http://www.face...julio.fernandez
COOL, Facebook also gave me http://www.face.../juliofernandez (without the dot)
Wife was able to get http://www.facebook.com/sherry
I’m also the FB admin for pages with over 1,000 fans and the system did not let me select my brand name; weird … as if they have a system to double check. I also tried other brands names and again, I was not able to do it.
Julio,
How were you able to get Facebook to give you both /julio.fernandez & /juliofernandez ??
Just curious…
WOOOOoo!!!
I got http://www.face....com/nickpettit
Happiness
http://www.face...k.com/mikeflynn
I got the one I wanted
http://www.face...ook.com/brennon
my first name not available urgh..
whoo hoo I’ve got min: http://www.face....com/jorgjansen
http://www.face.../flashdeveloper
http://facebook.com/meber
http://www.face...ok.com/hornbeck
Got my name! http://facebook...com/doncampbell
http://www.face...paulworthington
Just got facebook.com/UniqueVisitor
http://www.facebook.com/PRyck
I LOVE IT!!!!
thank you.
http://www.facebook.com/kobig
http://www.face...ook.com/fmaclen
http://www.face...hristopher.ross