So the goldrush is almost over and most of you may have secured your own vanity URLs on Facebook by now.
I first tried facebook.com/amit but it threw up an error saying that the minimum length of usernames is 5 characters. So the new URLs of my Facebook pages are:
- facebook.com/digital.inspiration – Digital Inspiration
- facebook.com/agarwal.amit – Personal profile
The similarity between Gmail & Facebook usernames
The period (".") in your Facebook username is actually meaningless because you can place it anywhere in the URL or even remove it from the username and your Facebook Vanity URL will still work.
So facebook.com/digital.inspiration is the same as facebook.com/digitalinspiration or facebook.com/di.gitalinsp.iration (notice this has multiple periods).
Gmail too cannot recognize dots or periods in email addresses so an an address like paris.hilton@gmail.com is the same as paris.hi.lton@gmail.com or paris…hilton@gmail.com.
And here’s a quick screencast video (link) that captures my failed attempt at securing a short URL on Facebook.
Hat tip Ankur (via FB).
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/facebook-username-cannot-read-dots/9062/
Reader Comments
I feel like laughing after realizing the dot(.) thing. I was thinking how people are getting two user name and I was getting jealous.
Written by Abhijeet Singh on 06.12.09
Hey Amit… The URL in 3rd para should be “www.facebook.com/di.gital.insp.iration (notice this has multiple periods).” and not “www.facebook.com/di.git.insp.iration (notice this has multiple periods).”
Written by Samrat P on 06.12.09
A bit nervous you were. :) BTW, is your directory ‘Best Indian Blogs’ still accepting new entries? Had submitted mine twice. It is an Alexa 100,000 blog with more than 1500 subscribers. Can you take a look?
Written by Midhun on 06.12.09
That’s really interesting!
I never knew that multiple periods have no effect on the URL.
Written by Shahab khan on 06.13.09
One more news -
“At this time only users who have registered for Facebook before June 10th, 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.”
BTW I was able to get mine – link same as my gmail id. :)
Written by Sachin on 06.13.09
What if someone uses the name of your website, for example “fastTrack” as their vanity URL. Is there anyway to get that removed and have it attached to your facebook profile instead?
Written by Annand on 06.13.09
I dissapointed facebook vanity url cause limited for 5 character or more. I need to 4 character for my first name like as amit. So dot or without dots direct to same account url.
Written by Toni on 06.13.09
But I can see that facebook.com/amit still works for somebody else :D
Written by Praveen Ratna Deepak on 06.13.09
Yup!!.That’s a real gold rush !!!.
Reports say that Facebook users have taken vanity urls at the rate of 550 per second!!
Written by Rohit on 06.13.09
I’m not sure how it works.
facebook.com/tom.erc is redirecting to my profile, while facebook.com/tomer.c gives 404.
Written by Tomer on 06.14.09
Indeed this is a great news from all the facebook users but can’t understand why the character limit is only 5.
Written by devilboy on 06.14.09