YES!
The initial Facebook land rush is now behind us. More than 500,000 vanity usernames were registered within the first 15 minutes. Additionally more than 3 million people registered their Facebook usernames in the first 12 hours after the land rush began. Wow! Did you get yours? http://facebook.com/username
Now it’s time to start watching the ripple effect. When a Social Media Giant like Facebook changes the rules there’s going to be ripples. When my profile goes from this
to something more like this
In terms of URL structure, that’s a substantial change.
Think of all the sites out there that asked for your LinkedIn , Twitter or Facebook account information. When you were originally asked you gave them what was correct at the time (the string of numbers).
Does that mean I have to go find all those sites and change my info?
No. Because Facebook has done what is called a 301 redirect on your old profile. That means if I try to use your old profile ID, Facebook will recognize it and send me seamlessly to your new profile URL. That’s a good thing!
However, if you are signing up for a new service, chances are they are going to ask you for your old numerical profile ID. Chances are you don’t have a clue where to start looking.
For the time being, you can find your old number by simply hovering over your name, or a picture of you. You’ll need to have your “status bar” enabled under “view” settings in Firefox. As you hover you’ll magically see your old ID in the status bar!
I can’t tell you how long this will work before Facebook changes it. For now, until the new websites finish scrambling to adjust for the Old vs. the New profile information you need to be aware of this Ripple Effect and how to *manage it.
(* at least for now)
;)
;)
Mike, interesting point I have used my real name all along for all these different sites. Whether twitter or facebook i m Frankrubi. So I guess I was ahead of the game for once. It is nice that facebook changes the url without any effort from the user.