louisgray.com - Latest Comments in http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Dhannanjay — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:50:09 -0000

Good and valuable post. Keep it up. Keep reading, keep thinking and keep writing.
Good work
Louisgray

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Chris Clayton — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:21:08 -0000

i couldnt get mine either, however after doing some research, i discovered one of my assistants had contacted facebook to get it protected as a trademark, so i cant get mine.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Suzanne Asprea — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:18:50 -0000

[gah. posted as a reply the first time.]

I am SO happy to see this blog post, Louis. I've been driving myself INSANE wondering what I'd done wrong. I too, am in Facebook Purgatory.

I'm a page admin for a national retailer and when I tried to get our name, which I'd registered as trademark-protected with FB on Thursday, FB told me it was unavailable. But when I went to check the URL to see who was squatting, I got a "page does not exist" error. Buh?

I also got this e-mail Friday night from FB User Operations:

"Thank you for submitting your trademark term(s). We’ve seen a large number of submissions and over the next few weeks we expect we’ll introduce a process for trademark owners to request the use of their restricted terms. We appreciate your patience in the interim and will be in touch soon."

Did you receive something similar? Seems really odd that they'd tell me NOW that they're working on a process to get us our own freaking name. A warning that if you protected your trademark, even you wouldn't be able to get it would have been nice. Major Fail, Facebook.

But thankyouthankyouthankyou for sharing your experience because it means I'm not crazy. ;-)

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Suzanne Asprea — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:17:26 -0000

I am SO happy to see this blog post, Louis. I've been driving myself INSANE wondering what I'd done wrong. I too, am in Facebook Purgatory.

I also got this e-mail Friday night from FB User Operations:

But thankyouthankyouthankyou for sharing your experience because it means I'm not crazy. ;-)

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

RogerJH — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:55:34 -0000

Facebook = the Microsoft of social media. As the social network giant consolidates its dominance, such heavy-handed whims and failures of competence will become commonplace.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

sarah — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:13:45 -0000

I could only register sarah.lefton but when I typed in /sarahlefton to see if that other girl beat me to it (there are only 2 sarah leftons in the world that i know of) it redirected to my name. whee. and i am certainly not a big blogger.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Shawn Collins — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:29:30 -0000

I had the same experience - I went in at the start to get shawncollins and it wasn't available, yet www.facebook.com/shawncollins is a dead page.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Michael Becker — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:31:08 -0000

I ran into the same situation, and I'm not even some well-known blogger. About 45 seconds after registrations started, by my watch, my chosen username -- "becker" -- was listed as unavailable. I opted for "michael.becker" instead. I checked on facebook.com/becker right afterward, to see which quicker Becker managed to snag it first. No page listed. Same today, no page listed. A bit disappointing.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

DamienBasile — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:15:23 -0000

What's even more interesting is that the guy who took http://www.facebook.com/pro... is Facebook friends with Darren Rowse. Now that's not very friendly.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Janet Fouts — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 20:18:34 -0000

That's interesting. I had similar results when I registered my Google profile. My usual jfouts wasn't available though it didn't appear to be in use and I ended up with jfouts1.

Actually I'm regretting the Facebook URL now as I tend to use Facebook differently than my other networks like Twitter and I'm not sure I want those networks to cross over so much.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

ramiromarques — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:40:12 -0000

Hi, Louis! I have got my username: http://www.facebook.com/ram...
I am sure you will get yours. So does Micahel Arrington. You deserve it.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

disqus_akm5gRrAIC — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:52:29 -0000

Quite right. The two things that happened here was FB getting supreme profile for very little investment and the fact that FB handled the whole technology overload issues so well.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

IdoNotes — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 12:21:46 -0000

I saw the hold on chrismiller to find that it was truly gone. But it seems they could have cared less about IdoNotes as it was readily available.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Judi Weiler Sohn — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:20:24 -0000

Hi Louis, odds are your name was reserved for you intentionally and you missed the memo.

I used to be editor of a GigaOm network site (WebWorkerDaily). As such, I was notified earlier in the week that /judisohn would be reserved for me if I wanted it (they didn't realize I was no longer working for the site) and I just had to let them know my Facebook ID. I replied letting them know I was no longer affiliated with GigaOm, but that was the name I wanted. I asked if it could still be reserved in advance or could they release it so I could get it on Saturday. He replied that I was still able to reserve it early, but I was told that it would take hours, if not days for the URL to resolve to my profile. Sure enough, this morning I logged in while the URL does not work, judisohn is not listed as a name I can reserve (I got the banner at the top like everyone else). I didn't care about using the URL, I just wanted to make sure that no one else could use it, so I have no complaints about the delay.

So I would say that your hunch that it was "helpfully" set aside for you was correct. If you want, message me and I'll give you the name of the Facebook employee I communicated with.

Hope that helps!

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Louis Gray — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:16:48 -0000

Wow, Adorno. You nailed it. The good news is that I actually have pictures of my using the computer in my PJs. I should send them your way.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Brenda Young — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:54:00 -0000

I guess there are more people with your name than you thought. I wonder if FB took any precautions to make sure someone didn't claim your name as their own much as there was a problem with corporate URLs being usurped at an earlier time on the Internet. -- I didn't hold out much hope to get my own name on FB, since it is so common (Brenda Young). I am resigned to having to let my "charming self" be known as 4byoung on FB, here, and elsewhere.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Brandon Mendelson — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:37:56 -0000

Louis,

I would suspect it was a well meaning Facebook employee as they (seem to) monitor the tech / social networking media pretty well. It seems like a PR nightmare waiting to happen if they did not, particularly if they angered the wrong person.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Yohan Yukiya 사요한 謝雪矢 — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:35:51 -0000

Yep, that is correct.

These are all the same:
http://facebook.com/j.C.j.O...
http://facebook.com/JC.J.o.....

Someone inside there really thought about this well. But then as Alex mentioned, "why offer it at all" when any combination will just point to the same profile. It's as good as (using my profile) http://facebook.com/JCJohnS...

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

marshal sandler — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:26:22 -0000

Interesting ! Excellent Comments-As Always

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Jason Clarke — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:48:00 -0000

Tony, jasonclarke didn't appear to be taken when I was trying to get it, though as you say it is now. Maybe that was a timing glitch. Oh well.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Alex Leonard — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:22:59 -0000

I'm confused as to why the full stop doesn't matter. Why even mention it in their examples then, or why offer it at all.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

Shéamus — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:10:46 -0000

I imagine they've been reserved Louis. Although http://facebook.com/chrisbr... was snapped up by somebody else, so I might be wrong.

Also not in the hands of arguably the rightful owners:

http://www.facebook.com/pro...
http://www.facebook.com/bri... (looks like Brian went for /copyblogger)
http://www.facebook.com/chr...

Some swine also got 'Sheamus', but at least my full name was available. Curious, as Joe points out, that placing a dot anywhere in the username part of your url doesn't matter.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

John E. Bredehoft (Empoprises) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:49:28 -0000

Assuming for the moment that this was done by a well-meaning Facebook employee who wanted to protect these names from squatters, the fact that they did this without communicating to any of you certainly had unintended consequences, since they locked out people who were most likely to communicate the lockout, and were most likely to be heard by others. One would think that any such employee would have communicated with you, Michael, and Jesse.

Of course my assumption may be completely off-base and something else may be at work. We'll see.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

adorno — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:57:03 -0000

LMAO! The self-importance and sense of entitlement amazes me.

I think they meant 'real' journalists and media people. Not guys who stay at home in their pajamas in front of a computer.

Re: http://blog.louisgray.com/2009/06/facebook-parks-some-vanity-url-seekers.html

anna — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 04:40:00 -0000

Tony - yeah that makes sense, thanks for helping me deal with my undirected outrage ;)