Facebook Users

If all the status updates, photos, links, notes, quizzes and games you've added to your Facebook profile don't adequately reflect the awesomeness that is you, just wait until this weekend. Starting at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, you'll be able to choose a username and convert your Facebook profile's Web address from an alphanumeric mess into something more memorable.

So, for example, instead of pointing friends to:

facebook.com/profile.php?id=3141592
(that's not a real address, as far as I can tell) you could instead direct them to:

facebook.com/guy_who_likes_pi
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based social network broke the news and explained the basics of this new feature in a blog post yesterday. Facebook will suggest a few usernames based on your own name, but you'll also be able to write something of your own creation as long as it's at least five characters long (so much for my dream of grabbing "robp") and consists only of numbers, letters and periods.

The post further explains that you'd better choose your username wisely: "Once it's been selected, you won't be able to change or transfer it." Anybody want to guess -- assuming that Facebook's servers don't first implode from all the traffic -- how many people will misspell a desired username in the wee hours of Saturday after spending a few too many hours at the bar?

Facebook's help section spells out further details. A separate note explains how administrators of public Facebook pages -- if they had 1,000 or more fans as of May 31 -- can set their own custom username and address.

My own public page was about 960 fans short of that minimum at the end of May, so I'll have to content myself with christening my personal presence on Facebook. Given the rarity of my spellcheck-defying surname, I'm not too worried about claiming a distinct moniker. But many other people -- here I'm thinking of friends and co-workers with last names like "Smith," "Brown" and "Norton" -- may have to get creative to find a memorable username that hasn't already been taken by one of this social network's 200-million-plus users.

If you're on Facebook, what do you plan to do with this opportunity? Do you have a username in mind that you'll try to grab right away? Or will you wait and see what's available after the initial, crazed land rush slows down?




from the washington post