Facebook Usernames Start Tonight

You have probably heard a lot about Facebook usernames this week and we wanted to offer our advice on how to manage this new Facebook feature.

Facebook profile URLs have always just included a randomly assigned number like "id=123456789" to distinguish profiles. While this works fine it does not make the URL easy to share. Facebook is starting to offer usernames to make it easier for people to find each other and connect.

The transition will look like this:

(photo credit Facebook Blog)

Starting at 12:01AM EDT on Saturday, June 13, you will be able to choose a username on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and the Facebook Pages by visiting www.facebook.com/username. Once a username has been selected, you won't be able to change or transfer it.

Facebook offers the following guidelines for choosing a username:

• Your username should be as close as possible to your true name (e.g. Jsmith or John.Smith)
• Usernames can only contain alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9) or a period (".")
• Choose a username you will be happy with for the long term. Usernames are not transferable

Eligibility

Eligibility is limited to anyone who joined Facebook before 3 p.m. (EDT) on June 9, 2009 (before usernames were publicly announced). This limitation is temporary to prevent squatting. All users who joined Facebook after the cut-off date will be eligible to register usernames on Sunday, June 28, 2009.

To register a username for your Business Page it must meet two requirements: it must be live on Facebook prior to May 31, 2009  and it must have a minimum of 1,000 fans as of May 31, 2009.

Reserve a Trademarked Name

To prevent the registration of a trademarked name you can fill out a form at http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=username_rights. This form is for rights holders interested in preventing their trademarks from being registered as usernames, not for reserving generic words or keywords. Facebook is strongly encouraging, and will hopefully be monitoring, to be sure all Page administrators choose a username that closely matches the true identity of their profile and business to prevent squatting.

To reserve a trademarked name you will need to provide:

• Company Name
• Your Title
• Contact Email
• Trademark to protect (Must be your exact trademark)
• Registration number

Intellectual Property Rights

If you find someone whose username infringes on your intellectual property rights, you can fill out a Notice of Intellectual Property Infringement form at http://www.facebook.com/copyright.php?noncopyright_notice=1.

Under 1,000 Fans? Why Not Create Your Own Vanity URL!

If you feel left out and still want your own vanity URL, your web team can create a Facebook URL on your own domain that is just as easy to share. This involves creating a new sub-domain and redirecting that URL to your Facebook Page. Like so: http://webbedmarketing.com/facebook.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions!

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Good to know. I haven't seen an issue with this for fan pages, but for some reason it wasn't readily apparent to me how I'd go about changing my personal page's url. Didn't care enough to investigate it much, but now that I know how to do it I'll go ahead and switch it over.

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