URLgate row hits Facebook as “key journalists” display vanity
By Dave Parrack
Just two days after Facebook officially announced vanity URLs were coming, and two days before the gold rush starts in earnest (12 a .m. EDT), a row has erupted over the preferential treatment handed out to employees, “key journalists,” and company partners. Or URLgate if you prefer.
Tuesday saw Facebook announce vanity URLs coming to the social network, essentially turning the current set of numbers in your Facebook URL to a username of your choosing. It’ll be available from Saturday, be free to all users, and be on a first come, first served basis. Or so we thought.
In actual fact, many of the best usernames will have already gone by the time you and I come to choose our preference. That’s because Facebook has decided to allow a select group of people to get in before the rush and grab their first choice before the great unwashed get a chance to upset the applecart.
One of these chosen few, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, revealed the controversial decision in a blog post. Arrington received an email from Facebook saying:
We wanted to let you know that we decided to reserve usernames for the key journalists and outlets we work with. Look out for an email from someone on the communications team with more details.
As well as “the key journalists and outlets,” Facebook has also allowed its employees to grab their usernames before the rest of us. Which, unfortunately for Arrington, means he didn’t get his first choice of facebook.com/mike.
Employees I can understand, but journalists and people who work at outlets which Facebook works with seems a little underhanded. Far from me to suggest Facebook has tried to buy good publicity from these people by stroking their egos but I’m having trouble working out why else this would have been done.
It doesn’t really matter and there are more important things happening in the world than URLgate (named as such by All Things D) but Facebook truly knows how to turn a good idea into a mess. It would have been fine if Arrington hadn’t released the email but then he wouldn’t have had the chance to display his own vanity with the closing line, “My guilt only extends so far, though. You suckers wait in line. I’m grabbing my name in advance.”
Related:
Entry was posted
on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 12:24 am
under
Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
Stumble It!
June 12th, 2009
As a huge business with little revenue, nothing much surprises me about Facebook. At least Arrington spill his guts so we know what’s going on, but how amusing that Facebook considers him a journalist. I wonder who else has gotten that invite.