As you may know, at 12:01 tonight, you will be able to change your Facebook.com URL from something gobbledygooky to a username you can choose. It will have to be some combination of your own name (Christopher.R.Rovzar, Christopher.R.R., Christopher.Rufio.Rovzar, etc.), but it will mean that your Facebook page will come up much higher on search engines when people Google you. You may notice that they’ve added names in some form already to the URLs, and now Facebook is probably your first result (it’s officially time to take down that picture of you with the Flabongo from junior year). Anyway, is this going to change everything? Are those of you with boring, normal last names like “Pressler” and “Amira” worried that some rival in Kissimmee-St. Cloud is going to steal your name before you can get to it?
Facebook has vowed to deal with any disputes and trademark issues “internally,” which means they’ll probably just side with whoever has the cutest profile pic. Finally, those of us who don’t have to worry about the competition because we have weird, unpronounceable last names that tortured us through middle school get to have our day in the sun.
Facebook to Begin Mediating Intractable Web Name Disputes [Bits/NYT]
Coming Soon: Facebook Usernames [Facebook]
