So Facebook has announced that users can get vanity URLs. This is fun and all, but lets dig a little deeper into what this means.
Facebook URL landgrab

As a social theorist, I have spent many an hours reading articles about Facebook. As the biggest player in the social field, they have had a ton of media coverage. One article that I read in WIRED a while back (the month escapes me, but it was recent) was all about the psychology behind Facebook.

Mark Z has always been about making sure that users felt confidant in sharing all the information that they do. This is the reason that FB is looked at like a walled garden-the more privacy allowed from the outside, the more users would want to share.

When Facebook was starting, they intentionally left off vanity URLs. Having profileid=2034958093485 rather than facebook.com/yourname-they figured that it would make users be themselves, rather than pretending to be someone else.

I am afraid that Friday night, there will be a digital landgrab. What does this mean to you:

1. Friday night, grab your URL
2. If you cant get it, go get a vanity URL of your own. Having yourname.com is a great thing-and usually around $10 a year. You can even have it point to your Facebook page if you like
3. You can rest assured that, even if you are out with friends, on a date, or have something better to do, you are not losing out by skipping the URL-if you are at a point that you need your Facebook URL, just get a website.

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