Facebook to get usernames. Nice, I guess?

Friday, June 12, 2009

Written by: Jed

So the big news in online social networking this week has been Facebook’s announcement of implementing a username system to “make it easier for people to find and connect with you.” The land grab kicks off at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June, 13; and by land grab I mean it literally, it’s first come first serve! I would hate to be named John Smith. It basically gives you a convenient URL of your profile – i.e. facebook.com/you. Upon first hearing this, I was excited. But the more I thought about it, the more irrelevant it became – at least to me.

Facebook has a quality unique from other social networks like Twitter, in that people use their real names. Depending on privacy settings, one could usually find who they’re looking for directly from knowing that person’s full name. And unlike MySpace, the average user’s friends list comprises of people they have some real connection to. Other than Facebook suggesting people that you should be friends with, meeting new and random people on the network isn’t the easiest thing to do. I’m not saying it isn’t possible to use Facebook in that manner, I’m sure there are people who do – I’m just saying it’s not conducive to doing that, like a Twitter or MySpace.

I’ve also heard the argument that implementing usernames would make it “business card friendly”. I guess that’s true, but is Facebook really a business friendly network? Speaking for the younger (30 and under) demographic – it seems that there have been more reports of questionable profiles (photos, status, etc.) not helping one’s cause in the workplace. It isn’t LinkedIn. It’s a personal social network. I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, I doubt many would dare have their Facebook profile advertised on a business card.

I also think that a furthered emphasis on usernames, could hurt Facebook in the long run. A lot of Facebook’s success is probably due to its anti-MySpace nature. It seems like a cleaner, more civilized, and private environment. Opening up usernames, may be a detriment to that vision.

But then there’s the argument for Google. Cleaner URLs makes your profile more Google friendly. Of course privacy settings still apply, but there’s the question to whether people would want to have their profile on the Google. As mentioned Facebook and the workplace aren’t always the best of friends. Imagine combining the stalking powers of both Facebook and Google? They also state that it would make it easier to find specific people with a common name. That is true, but in all my time using it, I haven’t had any problems finding exactly who I was looking for. Sure I’ve seen multiple search results, but network membership and/or a display picture usually help the cause.

There are also the alternatives. Whatever happened to the good ol’ domain name? That may be a little too technical for the average Facebook user, but if you agree with that, they’re probably not the same people advertising their Facebook URL on a business card. And don’t forget Google Profiles, it’s also free, and is part of the Google family of services and apps. Theoretically it makes for a great landing page for all of one’s online activities and feeds. In practise however, it’s still far from that. It’s biggest drawback is its low Google rank. My profile shows up on the third page of search results.

I’m not saying that Facebook + usernames = end of the world (or Facebook). I’m saying, great? It’s a nice touch, particularly for those who are able to grab what they want. But at the end of the day I don’t think it’ll matter too much. The people who would be plugging an online profile are directing people to a personal domain, or more recently their Twitter accounts. I just don’t see Facebook ever superseding or even substituting either, in any significant way.

Will I be camping out for a username? I want to say no (yeah, even after writing this far). It’s a vanity thing, and better I get it than someone else, right? I probably wont use it, at least in pointing people to my Facebook profile – but then again I’m blessed with a slightly unique name. I would be pitching my tent now if it were possible to grab /jed, unfortunately a five character minimum puts the kibosh on that idea. It also happens to be a Friday night, leaving me curious at how much of a land grab we’ll see. It’s limited to one (almost permanent) name per user, and it’s not like Facebook would allow username transactions – although that may have been a way to generate some extra revenue (the people who care about vanity URLs would probably pay).

A search of my name on Facebook led me to 14 other searchable results. I’m pretty confident in being able to own my name. And if I don’t, it’s not the end of the world. Unless I think of a pretty creative alternative, I’ll be leaving my Facebook URL as convoluted as it is. I wonder if you can designate your current personal Facebook URL to your new username? Imagine www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=123456789 on a business card.

(I made it through the whole post without mentioning my actual name. Yes, that was on purpose.)