I do agree that it is time Facebook get up to speed with other social networking sites such as Twitter and LinkedIn. The long URLs are difficult to track and use. The consistency with this will help recruiters, employers and even long-lost friends. However, just like with anything else, the tool can only be beneficial if used properly. Not every Mike Jones in the world can use that as their vanity URL, but the ones who want to use social networking for the right purposes will find a way to strategically pick their personal URL. As for the others, they are simply out of luck. Which is where the problem comes in hand, as Mike Schaffer mentioned earlier. Also, relatively new fan pages may have a problem landing the vanity URL of their choice. "Your FB Page must meet two requirements: must be live on FB prior to the May 31, 2009 cutoff date and have a minimum 1000 fans as of May 31, 2009." With many businesses, old and new, wishing to make a mark with social media- this might be a bump in the road.

It's about time that Facebook caught up with other social media sites! I've been using vanity URLs for sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, and several other sites for awhile.

Even though I prefer using other social media sites over Facebook, it's the one site that my non-Twitter-using colleagues, relatives, and friends use, and the easier they can find me over the other people named Mike Hankes on Facebook, the better.

I think it's a slippery slope. Yes, you'll see professionals adopt their real name as their user name. However, you'll have more college students creating a dumb name with "420" "69" "xxx" and other fun handles. That will only cost them credibility in future internship/job opportunities that you can't easily win back. So many people have the same name, that it will create more problems than it could ever hope to solve.