Custom Facebook URLs – The First Step to Facebook Mail?

Earlier today Facebook started offering the possibility for everyone to get their own custom URL. This means that you can change your cryptic profile URL (mine was facebook.com/profile.php?id=690301786) into something more easily identifiable, in the form of facebook.com/username.

Now, these vanity URLs have been around for some time in most modern web thinguies, like Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube. What took Facebook so long? To be fair, this shouldn’t be such a big deal. Other than making it easier to remember the URL, there’s really not a lot more to it. Some say it will help your search engine rating, but that’s irrelevant for most people. Anyway, I managed to get mine before anyone got to it first. My Facebook URL is now facebook.com/farinha.

I’m just wondering why are they doing this now. It’s not like users have been clamoring for it. And why all the hype and press around it? They even gave early access to journalists.

Allow me to try and start a rumour. What if Facebook is getting ready to launch an email platform? Everyone knows that the Facebook messaging system is pretty limited and could use a overhaul. I wouldn’t be too surprised if a whole email platform came out from there, already with 200 million members to kickstart it.