Facebook username land grab: Yawn
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.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
Then I noticed, there was a username John(4 characters) used by one of the facebook employees.
Went for "/billgates", didn't happen.
I wonder if someone snatched it up first, or if it was on the blocked list.
The countdown clock hits zero, press on the continue button that suddently appears (1 sec), highlight name (2 sec), hit the confirm button (1 sec), see the page load (3 sec) - all in under 10 secs.
Done;
http://facebook.com/terence
The landgrabs for real URLs is where all the pain is.
So in the end it wasn't hyped much at all, if people in many other circles (such as myself) didn't notice any of this proclaimed 'hype beyond belief.'
:-P
www.facebook.com/mollywood
- by DrunkBender June 13, 2009 8:38 AM PDT
- honestly, the "landgrab" of people finally being able to use their own names as a username is just long overdue, but kind of over hyped. YAWN is right... facebook finally stepped up to what most other sites have. no big deal except if you are famous or someone else has your name. ;-0
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