Facebook, the renowned social-networking site and very popular amongst netizens have made a thrilling announcement late Friday as well as early Saturday. They are going to offer the chance of claiming a personalized Web address, by any of their 200 million users worldwide. This will be available on First-Come First-Served basis and so better you join the already lengthy Queue at your earliest.

The new facility is revolutionary in that Facebook users can create their own online address distinctly and put their personal profile as they choose, like Facebook.com/nehasingh.  What is more they can make use of this Facebook page allotted as their personal home page and fill it with whatever info they want – advertise business; introduce to others; and tell the world whatever they want to.  MySpace is already doing this.

This announcement caught up many Facebook members late night as a surprise, and many of them changed their plans for Friday night to settle down grabbing the chance, before others do.

Scott Roewer, a professional Organizer in Washington D.C. wants to say that he is a sole proprietor and so he finds this very useful to promote his business and signed up quick at midnight. He is already making use of Facebook and Twitter in this regard.

Bryan Christmas, 27, another Facebook member said “I wanted to make sure that I had Internet access in San Francisco at 9.01 pm to spend few precious minutes on this. I have altered my week end plans”.

Facebook says that the intention of “vanity URLs” is to make easy finding of profiles when searched, instead of a sequence of numbers being used presently, to locate Facebook profiles. The new facility virtually means grabbing of land space in Facebook as no one can make use of a similar name, entered by someone else. When the name is confirmed it can not be changed either.

What the legal experts say about “vanity URLs” is it might lead to disputes in Court room for trademark rights, in some cases. For example, if a third-party registers the name of a brand or celebrity inadvertently, it will create problems.

Howard Weller, a trademark attorney in New York, representing celebrities says it could be a quagmire (a situation or predicament from which it is difficult to extricate oneself) and would lead to cases of cybersquatting – individuals squatting and claiming domain names in an effort to sell them for big profits, as happened when Internet came into being.

It should be remembered that Tony La Russa, baseball manager sued Twitter, the social networking site last week, as he found somebody used his name in unauthorized profile.

Facebook is confident about preventing cybersquatting, by taking adequate steps of restricting tens of thousands of names, inclusive of well known brand names and companies, politicians, celebrities etc. Additionally, Larry Yu, spokesman of Facebook says that its members will be allowed to submit requests for several days, in respect of terms objectionable to them.

Further safeguards taken by Facebook are – it won’t allow transfer of names registered by its members to others and claiming a name will be allowed to its users, who already have an account prior to the announcement of this special feature on June 9. However this restriction will be lifted on 28th June.

Larry Yu is confident that Facebook is not sure about how many people will be opting for this feature, but they have taken sufficient steps to ensure the service of the site is not affected adversely.

Being actively involved in managing and participating social media networks, Muhammad Saleem feels being genuinely interested in the fundamentals of social media can sustain interests in such a network.

Saleem feels a social media network consist of people with similar interests and preferences and so it is understood that they will vote for each others’ content. This need to be interested in conversations and relationships can help sustain the network.

On the question of finding fresh content, Saleem feels content exists in any website or social news or blog sites. One just has to have the discerning eye. Naturally ther4e are overlaps but the treatments are different since different people have varied views on any given topic.

He does not rule out the role of payola in such social media networking, however, he is confident that the method employed is usually not suitable and it’s a temporary thing. One can usually see through such spam. But to him content is king. If the content is good and interesting enough, he feels it can be put up for others to view it.

One’s conversion goals are important, according to Saleem. A social networking site would not be effective enough if one is trying to make money by selling advertisement. Most of these users have adblock plus installed and it does not help at all.

Social news is just one aspect, he thinks. There are other aspects like online video, online communities, social networking etc and if the site offers these and much more, you are hooked to the site.

If bloggers were excited about Diggs, it was a natural thing, Saleem feels, because it had not paid for a public relation exercise. For Tip’d Saleem says three things are significant for its success. Design, usability and branding he feels are the three planks on which a site can succeed and get more users.

According to Saleem, if one intends to make social media a part of one’s online marketing strategy one should take into consideration one’s conversion goals and also the interests and purposes.

It’s important to focus on one’s own community and also on the relationship with publishers. The social media expert is confident of the role of online marketers and publishers, for it is they, he thinks, who are able to successfully develop a social network community and site.

Via