Marketer and avid Twitterer Ian Schafer gives his perspective.
(Credit: Twitter)The servers didn't crash, the system didn't go haywire, and no locusts started spewing out of anyone's monitors when Facebook let its 200-million-plus members reserve customized URLs on Saturday at 12:01 AM Eastern. 200,000 user names were reserved in a matter of three minutes, according to Twitter posts from Facebook employees.
"Well, that was anti-climactic. Worked, no bugs, and I got my name," someone told me in an instant message. "Was exciting for a hot second though!"
I did notice some Facebook pages loading more slowly than usual. After all, the whole thing was hyped beyond belief, at least in certain circles. My Twitter feed was bogged down with "countdown"-related tweets and people proudly announcing their new URLs, but it's unclear how many people who aren't affiliated with the tech or media industries actually cared. Regardless, Facebook appears to have carried this out very smoothly, undoubtedly with beefed-up server power in place to streamline the process.
But it's not over for Facebook. Now, the social network will have to deal with an invariably bloated degree of customer service complaints, as well as a likely stream of legal inquiries pertaining to copyrights and trademarks.
For the moment, however, it appears to have been even less eventful than the so-called "Twitpocalypse" that freaked out the blogosphere earlier on Friday.
UPDATE (9:33 p.m. PT): We've heard from a few people who were trying to grab their first names and couldn't--even though the names didn't appear to be reserved already. One of them speculates that Facebook may have simply "cancelled out" some popular names.
(Credit:
Facebook)
Facebook's 200-plus million members will be able to customize the URLs to their profiles starting at midnight Eastern on Saturday, according to a post on the Facebook blog. Currently, users' profile URLs have been structured as a string of numbers. At least for now, it doesn't look like the switch is mandatory.
This is a move that will help Facebook profiles get better traction in search engines, potentially upping traffic--and give people-search sites a run for their money in the process. For brands whose "fan pages" are a crucial part of Facebook's marketing and advertising strategy, it'll make their pages easier for people to access without needing to click around much.
But there's fine print! "Think carefully about the user name you choose. Once it's been selected, you won't be able to change or transfer it," the post by Facebook's Blaise DiPersia read. "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 user name immediately because of steps we've taken to prevent abuse or 'squatting' on names."
There's something significant here: not being able to change or transfer your Facebook name means that it's less likely there will be a big market for them on eBay, Craigslist, or elsewhere, something that could easily get out of hand otherwise.
Also: "We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook user name in the future," DiPersia wrote. Presumably, this means that you'll be able to use it for Facebook Connect log-ins on external sites, rather than your e-mail address.
In what's probably one part prank and one part ironic statement, New York society-pages site Cityfile announced Friday that over the past few months it has been quietly snapping up domain names corresponding to the people it covers.
You may not have heard of many of the people on the list: the obsessively name-dropping Cityfile's terrain is more focused on Gotham's business and media leaders than the likes of Britney and Paris. But among those on the list are Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman Jr. (Cityfile now owns edgarbronfmanjr.com), Greycroft Partners' Alan Patricof, and Nerve.com founder Rufus Griscom.
Domain name speculation has been the subject of much debate for over a decade now, but the gossip site doesn't plan to simply hoard them (and there's no indication yet as to whether the site plans to sell them back to the notable people in question at a premium). The domain names now redirect to the celebrities' Cityfile-created profiles, which are rather comprehensive listings of all sorts of both savory and unsavory details pertaining to the person in question. That means more traffic--and ad revenue--for Cityfile itself. Quite shrewd of them. But there's also an ironic twist to it.
"Given the lengths to which prominent New Yorkers go to control their public profiles, you'd think they would have purchased their domain names by now," the site explained. "It's a $4 investment, which we're pretty sure billionaires like Jonathan Tisch, Steve Feinberg or Edgar Bronfman, Jr. can afford, even if this is the greatest depression ever."
Three words: Ha, ha, ha.
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