If you use facebook for your business you might want to read this...
 

This is IMPORTANT and you need to know about it RIGHT AWAY.

Tonight Facebook is staging one of the biggest virtual land grabs ever - the rush to claim your own name on Facebook.com.

You've heard of Internet Marketers claiming that the surge of traffic crashed their servers?

Well tonight there will be a server rush that has rarely, if ever, been duplicated on the Net. And you NEED to be part of it.

Right now if you want to send someone to your profile, you have to figure out a URL that looks something like this:

www.facebook.com/people/Your-Name/585946540
(That's an inactive URL, BTW, so don't click it.)

But wouldn't you rather own www.facebook.com/yourname?

And this becomes even MORE important for Facebook Fan Pages (not your regular friend profiles, the pages you can set up to promote your business.) Can you imagine how devastating it would be to have someone else own your company name in Facebook?

In the past, it was easy to own your own name on Facebook, all you had to do was to spend a large amount with Facebook (think $50,000+ per month) or be a huge celebrity, and it was yours.

But starting tonight at midnight Eastern US time (that would be 9:00pm Pacific time) you can claim your name as a facebook URL. Plus, you can claim names for your business pages too.

But here's the catch - it's first come, first serve. Imagine a couple of hundred MILLION people all try to grab their name at the same time, and there will be some interesting server shenanigans occuring.

Here's what to do.

Tonight at midnight US Eastern time, login to Facebook then go to http://www.facebook.com/username

You will see a form that will give you several suggested usernames, and the ability to choose your own. Either choose one of the names suggested or type in your own.

Repeat this process for any Facebook Fan Pages you administer, though there are three catches: first, your page must have over 1000 fans prior to May 31st 2009, you can't claim something generic like travel or insurance, and you can't claim someone else's trademark.

In fact, if you have a registered trademark, I suggest you go to
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact...sername_rights
right now to prevent others from grabbing your name.

If someone else has already has your name, get creative - add a period, or a dash, shorten it, lengthen it, or slap a number in there somewhere.

That's the drill. I'll be there at midnight, and I suggest you be there too.

And bring a book, the page refresh times may be really sllllloooooowwww.

Don Crowther
SMARTS Founder
StomperNet Faculty Member

Yup, it'll be pandimonium... people rushing to grab the good usernames.

You'll be able to find me at http://www.facebook.com/juicydlinks :winkwink:

So funny how people who are going to be fighting to get the name they want are announcing this everywhere. Why create the added competition. I have heard so much chatter about this today.

:2 cents:

Because:

1) Very common first names will be taken right away so it doesn't really matter if you chat about this with others. Millions have seen this, few hundred won't make a difference.

2) From a business perspective, if you've a page that has over 1000 fans it won't matter because chances are people who you talk to don't have a page in the same niche, with over 1000 people.

Granted I've 2 names that I want to grab right away so I'll be sitting here with my refresh on.

I got the name I wanted, no slow down or anything. :thumbsup

Just me or where is the username option on new accounts just created? I see it on my well established profile but not new accts... ?

account must have been created before July 9th i believe

At this time only users who have registered for Facebook before June 9th, 2009 are eligible to obtain a username. All other users will be allowed to register a username in the near future. We apologize for any inconvenience.

well that was anticlimatic.

done in seconds .. easy peasy

Wow, tons of good stuff still available. I figured these would all be scooped up by now.

Ok I signed up for a new business account using the name I want, and I signed up for a new personal account afterwards to keep it separate from my personal shiz, but when I got to http://www.facebook.com/myterm I get:

The page you requested was not found.

i got my name no problem...

me too...and I'm famous

:1orglaugh

Got mine. not sure what the hell I'd ever do with a facebook account, but I got it. LOL

I actually have had an acct forever, I got it to keep an eye on my kids who have facebook accounts and use them like crazy. Am I bad? lol

Argh :mad:

I grabbed a few good ones... and a couple of funny ones

Thanks for the heads up, grabbed some.

can't get a unique name for new accounts.

changed mine to fukitall

/freeviagra
/acaiberry

all the good ones i tried were gone :(
too bad

ARGH! So many to choose from...

If you only created a facebook account now, you're locked out... at least until Facebook decides to open it to newer accounts.