Urgent: Grab Your Name URL on Facebook at midnight
This is IMPORTANT and you need to know about it RIGHT AWAY.
Tonight Facebook is staging one of the biggest virtual land grabs ever – the rush to claim your own name on Facebook.com.
You've heard of Internet Marketers claiming that the surge of traffic crashed their servers?
Well tonight there will be a server rush that has rarely, if ever, been duplicated on the Net. And you NEED to be part of it.
Right now if you want to send someone to your profile, you have to figure out a URL that looks something like this:
www.facebook.com/people/Your-Name/585946540
(That's an inactive URL, BTW, so don't click it.)
But wouldn't you rather own www.facebook.com/yourname?
And this becomes even MORE important for Facebook Fan Pages (not your regular friend profiles, the pages you can set up to promote your business.) Can you imagine how devastating it would be to have someone else own your company name in Facebook?
In the past, it was easy to own your own name on Facebook, all you had to do was to spend a large amount with Facebook (think $50,000+ per month) or be a huge celebrity, and it was yours.
But starting tonight at midnight Eastern US time (that would be 9:00pm Pacific time) you can claim your name as a facebook URL. Plus, you can claim names for your business pages too.
But here's the catch – it's first come, first serve. Imagine a couple of hundred MILLION people all try to grab their name at the same time, and there will be some interesting server shenanigans occuring.
Here's what to do.
Tonight at midnight US Eastern time, login to Facebook then go to http://www.facebook.com/username
You will see a form that will give you several suggested usernames, and the ability to choose your own. Either choose one of the names suggested or type in your own.
Repeat this process for any Facebook Fan Pages you administer, though there are three catches: first, your page must have over 1000 fans prior to May 31st 2009, you can't claim something generic like travel or insurance, and you can't claim someone else's trademark.
In fact, if you have a registered trademark, I suggest you go to
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=username_rights
right now to prevent others from grabbing your name.
If someone else has already has your name, get creative - add a period, or a dash, shorten it, lengthen it, or slap a number in there somewhere.
That's the drill. I'll be there at midnight, and I suggest you be there too.
And bring a book, the page refresh times may be really sllllloooooowwww.
Don Crowther
SMARTS Founder
StomperNet Faculty Member
Hey thanks for the information.
I just did the change …
Never thought someone would write about grabbing a profile name on Facebook. This can be a late comment buy I've already grab mine either.
I see a lot of good articles here, what template do you use ?
Blogging is now becoming one of the new phenomenal ways to make money online. It is no surprise because you can work on your own hours, if you call it working that is.
I want to be defined by a web site that requires me to update it in order for me to be 'current' or hip and so forth.
Luckily, I able to grab my name on facebook. I guess many with common name will find difficult to get their name registered at facebook. I think, they should use user name instead of profile name in the URL status.
thanks for awesome post
Otomasyon
Selim
Hi Dudes
Somehow I managed to get a hold of mine and forgot to come back and let you know.
http://www.facebook.com/tj.short
Thanks heaps for the heads up.
I think that's cool, but I'm not sure I want to be defined by a web site that requires me to update it in order for me to be 'current' or hip and so forth. Just a thought.
Luckily I don't have an extremely common name. I was late
to the party and still got my desired Facebook URL
Very funny! Glad that’s never happened to me!
“claim your own name.”
Social networking sites will soon be a way for the next generation to define themselves. It won’t be about knowing yourself and placing it online but the other way around. That’s certainly a scary thought.
“And bring a book, the page refresh times may be really slllllooooowwww.”
Thanks for these tips. A presence in facebook isn’t that easy, and these simple steps are the first stage to utilizing facebook as an entrepreneurial tool.
“the rush to claim your own name on Facebook.com.”
Thanks for these helpful tips. Who would have thought logging online and typing would become as competitive as the business offices out there?
I just reserved my username (it's 6:36pm in Hawaii, so I guess it's been about 36 minutes since it opened. I don't have 1000 friends but they still allowed me to grab LetsGoBanners.
thanks,
Chris
Hi Andy,
You know I read everything you send me right away… except I must have missed this one. In fact, I didn't see your email, only found the post while reading another post here.
Guess what? Every 'reasonable' incarnation of my name is….gone… :<0
Melissa
@Hey thanks for the information.
Yes! I got it
http://www.facebook.com/detlev.lengsfeld
Thanks. I got mine.
Hey Andy,
Just wanted to go on here to say that, boy you're a life saver. THanks for reminding me to do this. Unfortunately facebook [slash] marc [dot] goodman was already taken, but I WAS able to snatch up facebook/goodman.marc
Not bad not bad, right! Thnkx. By the way, feel free to add me when you get a chance
Did everyone over at stompernet get their name? Also, what's up with the spamfree wordpress plugin you got? It won't let me post this message no matter how i edit it?
This sounds really cool. I wonder how many people participated and I also wonder how slow facebook's website was that night.
Ahhh. I found out about this too late. My names is pretty generic so I bet it was taken already. Wish I came to your blog sooner.
Hi Stomper
Thank you for letting us know, I rarely go on facebook, just a couple of times a month to catch with old friends…
But if for a company name, YOU WANT TO HAVE YOUR OWN PROFILE, instead of someone else getting their hands on it.
Again thank for letting us know…
Daniel Howard
I live in the UK and thought I had no chance of getting my username due to the time difference. It was 5am here when it launched. Anyway I was pleasantly surprised, well shocked to be honest, when my full name was still available and I claimed it.
Just shows that you should never take it for granted that you have missed out on an opportunity.
http://www.facebook.com/raycunningham
Thnak you very much!
Now I am the first "lorberg" in my family with my last name TM!
Hey thanks for the information.
I just did the change …
I did not get my first and lastname…
I had to put my middle initial… No Probs though
Thanks for the information
Have a great day!!
Nick