Are you ready for facebook’s great online race?  On Friday, June 12th at 9:01 p.m., pacific time, (that’s Saturday June 13th at 12:01 a.m. for you East Coasters) facebook will make available personalized URL’s for domain accounts.

Facebook made the original announcement on its blog on Tuesday, June 9^th.  What does this mean for you and me.  First let’s take a look at how a typical address looks like.

My personal facebook URL looks something like this

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1063591103&ref=name (not the exact address)

With the change, it could look something like this

http://www.facebook.com/charles.harris

or

http://www.facebook.com/sportsiinfo101

For me, I plan on securing my full name on facebook, not sportsinfo101 URL.  Why?   Facebook is technology I use for family, college friends, camps friends, high school friends etc.  It is not something that is connected in any way to the sportsinfo101 brand that you see on this web site, Twitter, You Tube Channel and Digg.

I started the sportsinfo blog in connection with work at a non sports-based Internet company as a way to master the search marketing and search optimization.  Facebook for me is personal – the other social media tools are work or in this case, sports related.  I have spoken to others and many feel the same way.

There are so many different ways to communicate these days, you must consider and use the best channels that define your brand professionally as well as personally.  That said, many brands have set up a corporate presence on facebook.  I am sure many of these people will be positioning themselves late at night to secure that corporate name in connection with the facebook account. 

This is not the gold rush but I would expect a lot of folks will be trolling online tonight to secure key domain names.  With 200 million facebook accounts, there is a lot at stake when it comes to branding on social networks.  This is a key social network in the media space, so watch out.  One last point, once you choose a name online, like everything else, it cannot change.  Think, before you hit the send button.

Could it cause computer crashes?  Stay tuned.  I am sure there will be more news about this over the weekend and into next week.  Good luck and enjoy the facebook virtual land grab.

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Other links to my branded content:

Sportsinfo — Twitter Page

Sportsinfo101 You Tube Channel

Sportsinfo101 Digg page