Facebook users will be able to claim “Vanity URLs” to customize the Web addresses profiles starting at midnight Eastern on Saturday, according to a post on the Facebook blog. Currently, users’ profiles URLs have been structured as a string of numbers – as seen here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=xxxxxxxxx
Starting Saturday, a vanity URL will look something like this:
http://www.facebook.com/first.last
Usernames will be available to anyone with a Facebook profile or a page with more than 1,000 fans. The username must be at least five characters long. Choose wisely - according to the Facebook blog post:
Think carefully about the username you choose. Once it’s been selected, you won’t be able to change or transfer it. If you signed up for a Facebook Page after May 31 or a user profile after today at 3 p.m. EDT, you may not be able to sign up for a username immediately because of steps we’ve taken to prevent abuse or “squatting” on names.
What does this mean for brands?
Make sure your trademarked terms are protected. Until the switch happens on June 13th, trademark owners can go here to protect their trademarked terms:
Be aware that if you have a trademarked term, you will be asked for the registration number for that trademark. This is for differentiation purposes between similar trademarked terms – so that Facebook can know exactly what your trademark is for. For example, are you Apple Computers or Apple Records when you ask for the term “Apple.”
You may need to go to your legal team to be sure you are using the right registration number, but you can also search for your registration number using this link to the United States Patent and Trademark Office Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS):
Try using the “New User Form Search (Basic)”
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=4007:73tosq.1.1
Last 5 posts by LukeMenasco
- Google Trademark Policy - June 4th, 2009
- Google AdWords Trademark History - June 4th, 2009
Tags: Enterprise, Facebook, marketing, Social Media, social search, Vanity URLs
