Why I’ll be boring with my Facebook username
Yesterday, Facebook staff posted an announcement on the company blog regarding the unlocking of Facebook usernames or “vanity URLs.” Now, instead of going to facebook.com/profile.php?id=7901458, starting this weekend, you could visit facebook.com/cesart (or whatever name I choose on Friday night) to write on my wall and view pictures I’ve uploaded.
This is huge for social networking. Not only does it make Facebook more semantic and easier for people to use, but it also adds a new level of interaction between users—assuming people start to use Facebook more like Twitter.
From the announcement:
Your new Facebook URL is like your personal destination, or home, on the Web. People can enter a Facebook username as a search term on Facebook or a popular search engine like Google, for example, which will make it much easier for people to find friends with common names.

I imagine two situations occurring:
- People who link their Twitter accounts to their Facebook accounts (like me) will see increased use of the @ symbol in things like Facebook comments or any other time there is need to reference another user—there will be demand to link to the profiles when someone’s username is mentioned;
- people who don’t merge Twitter and Facebook will begin to use the @ syntax, further blurring the lines between Facebook and Twitter.
My advice, and this is what I’m planning to do, is to make sure you’re happy with your Twitter account username since that’s always editable. Come Friday night, make your Twitter and Facebook usernames match, because (as stated in the username FAQ) once you lock in your Facebook name, there’s no going back; your online identity will be set.
EDIT: I indeed ended up with facebook.com/cesart. Let’s be friends (that is of course, if we already have met in real life)!


If you’ve created lists or not, your left-most navigation will look similar to what’s on the left, with the News Feed filter set as the default. Facebook will present you with default Network filters immediately below the global News Feed category, so you can try out the interactions with those if you haven’t created any lists yet. The News Feed is a global update of the content and interactions with everyone on your friends list, including Public Profiles (e.g.: 

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