David Flynn10 June 2009, 9:40 AM
From 2pm this Saturday Facebook users will be able to register a username which will become their profile’s Web address.
Today I’m facebook.com/profile.php?id=581428981. But as of Saturday afternoon I’m hoping to become facebook.com/djsflynn.
That’s the long and the short of this morning’s announcement that Facebook will replace user ID numbers with simplified usernames.
As of 2pm Saturday, Facebook fans will be able to swap their randomly-assigned user ID for a plain English name, which will then be grafted into their Facebook home page’s URL in the same manner as Twitter.
A sign-up page has been launched at
www.facebook.com/username, which currently has a countdown clock showing when the ‘first come, first served’ allocation of user names will commence.
There’s a limit of one username per profile. The name must be at least five characters in length and only include alphanumeric numbers, letters and a full stop.
“Your new Facebook URL is like your personal destination, or home, on the Web” explains Facebook’s Blaise DiPersia.
“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. Your username will have the same privacy setting as your profile name in Search”.
“When your friends, family members or co-workers visit your profile or Pages on Facebook, they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL in their browser. This way people will have an easy-to-remember way to find you. We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook username in the future.”